


Salvation Across Universes

by WarlockWriter



Series: Salvation 'Verse [3]
Category: Jericho (US 2006), Supernatural, The Agency (TV 2001), The Evil Gene (2015)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Honest, I know this is for the Non-Gabe Rich Bang, It's a small role, Our Demons Are Different, So why is Gabriel there?, The explanation is in the notes at the end, Which is allowed, begs the existential question "if you use another's oc are they still an oc?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-05 02:19:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 75,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17910119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarlockWriter/pseuds/WarlockWriter
Summary: This story involves canon and fanfic from Supernatural, Jericho, The Evil Gene and The Agency. It is also an AU continuation of Hixystix's storyAll the Difference, which takes place prior to canon Jericho. Characters from All the Difference used with permission.Gabriel has a sense of his vessels in other universes (all of which are Rich characters). He recently lost James (from Open Water 2), and he has sensed that Griff and Bill are in danger. Because of his weakened state, post-Asmodeus torture, he can’t make the crossing to the other universes himself, and he recruits Lex, who is in Gabriel’s universe, to save them.Cue danger, lots of hacking and everyone getting their own moment of awesome.Beta'd by the awesomeHixyStix. Art by the amazingSirlsplayland. I was so thrilled to have my story chosen by such an amazing artist!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Timelines
> 
> Lex: 8 years after the end of the series. _The Agency_ timeline has been moved forward by about a decade.
> 
> Griff: A few months after the end of _The Evil Gene_
> 
> Gabriel: In between my stories _Out of Hell Leads Up to Light_ and _A Heaven of Hell, A Hell of Heaven_ (unpublished)
> 
> Bill/Sarah: Less than a week before the bombs drop. As with _All the Difference_ , which this is based on, the _Jericho_ timeline has been moved up almost a decade.

Sarah was driving home from her shift at the library when she saw the car by the side of the road. It was a beat-up old Chevy, and at first glance she thought it was abandoned, but as she got closer, she saw a slumped figure in the driver's seat. One tire was blown out, and from its position, half on and half off the road, it looked like it had rolled to a stop on its own.

She pulled onto the shoulder behind the car and debated her next move. Bill had talked about how dangerous traffic stops could be because he never knew who was in the car. She figured this was a similar situation, only worse, because she had no way of running the license plate. Should she call Bill? He was still on his shift, and she knew he only wanted her to call in case of emergencies. Was this an emergency? She didn’t know yet.

She sat in her car, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel while she decided. Finally, she reached into her purse and checked for her pistol. Yes, it was there. Knowing Bill would be pissed but unable to help herself, she pulled out her gun and got out of the car.

Holding her pistol close by her side, out of the sightline of the driver, she carefully advanced on the car. "Hey!" she called as she approached. "Everyone okay there? Do you need help?"

No answer.

She walked a few steps closer, swinging wide so the driver couldn't open the door and rush her easily. Now she was able to see that there were two men in the car. The driver was slumped over the steering wheel, and there was blood running down his forehead, soaking his shirt front. The other was curled on his side, head facing the passenger side door. From a distance, he didn't look injured but appeared to be unconscious.

This was looking less like an elaborate set up and more like two guys in need of help. While someone certainly could have splashed himself with that much fake blood, she didn't think it likely.

Still holding her pistol, she swung around the other side of the car, approaching the passenger side. While the passenger didn't appear injured, he wasn't positioned for a sudden snatch and grab, and Sarah felt confident she could either shoot or get away in case she was wrong.

The passenger's face was pressed into the seat, but she could see an unruly mop of brown hair. She could see just enough of the driver to guess that he was middle-aged, maybe late 30s or early 40s, also with brown hair a similar shade to the passenger. Brothers, maybe?

Neither of the men were moving, but with her senses heightened by apprehension, she could hear both of them breathing. Another step closer. No movement. Now she was close enough to open the passenger side door. With a mental apology to Bill, she reached out with the hand not holding the pistol and tried the door.

Of course it was locked. Neither men moved. So this was actually what it looked like or an unbelievably elaborate plot to lure her in.

She crossed back to the other side and tried the driver's door. It was unlocked and opened easily. "I'm armed," she said, proud of how steady her voice remained. "If you're hurt, I'll get help, but I won't hesitate to shoot if you try anything."

Not even a twitch, other than the slow rise and fall of their chests.

Now she was to the dangerous part, and she took a deep breath of her own before reaching in to gently touch the unconscious driver. When he didn't move, she let out a quick sigh of relief. Surely if they were going to try something, they'd have done it by now?

She turned him slightly so she could see his face. And blinked, certain she must be seeing things.

Even covered in blood, he looked like he could have been Bill's older brother. Except not really. More like Bill's older twin. She knew that jawline intimately, having run her fingers over it more times than she could count.

The man didn't move, but he did let out a small moan of pain or distress. She watched his eyes move rapidly under closed lids.

She glanced over at the other man, noticing now that his jawline was awfully familiar as well. Certain now that she must be in some sort of weird dream, she clicked the master door lock mechanism, walked to the other side of the car and opened the passenger door. Now she had a clear line of sight to the other man who could also have been Bill's older twin, a few years younger than the driver.

What the hell?

She had no idea what was really going on, but she knew this had moved firmly into emergency territory. It was definitely time to call Bill.


	2. Chapter 2

THREE DAYS EARLIER

Lex walked into his favorite coffee shop on his way to work. The barista knew him and was already writing his order on a large cup.

He hadn't slept well, and he decided to kick back and let the caffeine wake him up before finishing his trip to the office. There was a nasty money transfer trace waiting for him, and he needed to be sharp for it. A couple of agents were waiting for the results so they didn't walk in blind to their next mission.

He had just opened the paper and was rolling his eyes at the latest Presidential tweets when he felt someone approach his table. Lex glanced up, ready to put on his polite face, but as soon as he saw the man, apprehension shot through him.

He knew the leather-jacketed form, but it had been nine or ten years since he'd seen him. "Loki?"

The other man, who looked so much like him, sat down. "Not anymore, Lex. How have you been? Holland been behaving himself?"

Lex couldn’t help smiling. Loki had done some Trickster/vengeance thing on Holland after the Internal Affairs dweeb had tried to get Lex blamed for leaking information about a case. Loki hadn't said what he'd done, but Holland had gone on a sudden leave of absence for several weeks and had basically avoided Lex ever since. In return, Lex had set the Trickster up with a credit account that was untraceable and pulled funds from various illegal offshore accounts belonging to terrorists. He updated the code on a regular basis, but now that he thought about it, the account hadn't been used in years.

He decided not to mention it yet. Instead, he said, "Yeah, he's been no problem. Retired a couple of years ago. We all threw a party after he was gone."

Lex was surprised when that comment got little more than a small smile from Loki. This wasn't the Trickster he remembered.

"Everything okay, man?" He felt weird. This guy was a god, right? How could a god be having a bad day?

Loki sighed deeply and snapped his fingers, a gesture Lex remembered from all those years earlier. Suddenly, all the sounds from the coffee house faded away.

Lex looked around in some alarm. Everyone was still there. Just silent.

"Don't worry. All I did was create a sound blocking bubble around us. The rest of the place doesn't need to hear this."

"I didn't know you could do that, but I guess it shouldn’t surprise me. So what do you need to tell me that the rest can't hear?"

Loki's eyes glowed briefly blue, and the scent of an oncoming thunderstorm filled the air.

"What the fuck?" Lex exclaimed, knocking his chair over as he hastened to back away.

The blue in his eyes and the heavy wet scent faded as Loki waved a hand, and Lex was unable to move. "Don't worry. No one could see that. Sit down."

Lex could move again, and he paused but finally sat down. As weird as that had been, he knew deep in his bones that Loki would never hurt him. Although he didn't know how he knew that.

"I'm not Loki anymore, Lex. And even when you knew me, I wasn't  _ just _ Loki."

"Who are you, then?" Lex asked.

"The Archangel Gabriel."

He felt like he should be more surprised by that. However, he accepted it the way he had accepted everything else about the Trickster. "So I should call you Gabriel now?"

Gabriel raised an eyebrow, seeming surprised at his lack of reaction. Finally, he shrugged and said, "Whatever works for you. I answer to a lot of things."

Lex had to smile at that. "Okay, Gabriel. What brings an archangel here? I mean, don't you have things you need to do in Heaven or something?"

There was no mistaking the wince those words produced.

"Sorry," he hastened to add. "I didn't mean to hit a sore spot."

Gabriel was shaking his head. "Not your fault. It's just been a bad few years. I need your help."

"What can I do for an archangel?" This must be another of his weird tricks. What had Lex done to deserve that? He'd done his best to be decent to everyone he met.

"No, you haven't done anything. That's not what this is about."

Yeah, so it was just a bit freaky when he seemed to read minds. Probably an angel thing. "Okay, then. Back then to my question. What can I do that an archangel can't?"

Gabriel sighed, obviously reluctant to discuss whatever this was. "All right," he finally said. "There's something you need to know about angels. We can't be down here, among humans—" He waved his arms in an inclusive gesture. "—without being in a body. We call them vessels, and they are just ordinary people who have the potential to house an angel. Until we ask permission to inhabit them."

Now Lex was alarmed, and his eyes got very wide.

"No," Gabriel assured him. "I don't need you as a vessel." He indicated his own body. "Yes, you are a potential vessel for me, but this one is fine right now."

"Then what do you need me for?"

Another sigh. "Would it surprise you to learn that there are other universes out there?"

Lex shook his head. "Not at all. I read comic books and sci-fi, so I always assumed there were."

"Good." Gabriel looked satisfied. "I'm glad I don't have to convince you first. So, I have potential vessels in every universe, and I have a vague sense of their wellbeing. Or lack thereof."

Lex put up a hand. "Wait a minute. I assume there are alternate universe versions of you too?"

"Of course."

"So wouldn't the alternate versions of you inhabit those vessels?"

Gabriel was shaking his head before Lex finished speaking. "You'd think so, but no. The alternate mes have different vessels. Don't ask me why. Dad didn’t always explain everything, even to us archangels."

Lex was suddenly glad he had never been a Christian. That didn’t sound like the kind of God he wanted to believe in. On the other hand, his atheist beliefs had just gotten a serious kick in the teeth.

"Okay, forget I asked that. Go on with what you need me for."

Suddenly Gabriel looked ancient and worn. It was a look Lex had never seen on him before. "One of my vessels is already dead. I wasn't able to do anything about it. I was…tied up at the time."

Lex knew he was only getting the tip of that iceberg, but he sensed now was not the time to ask.

Gabriel continued. "There are two more in danger right now. I want you to go help them."

Lex couldn't do anything except blink for a moment. Finally, he found his voice. "But you're an archangel! Can't you just…I don't know…perform a miracle or something?"

Self-loathing twisted his features, and Lex suddenly wished he could…hug him or something? What did archangels like anyway? Surely nothing so mundane as hugs.

"I wish I could, Lex. I'm…weakened right now. It would take more energy than I have to cross into those other universes. You see, I'm alive in them, and they, the universe, not my counterparts, would fight me. It would be different if I were an angel, but then I wouldn’t have the power to make the crossing, so I still would need your help."

That was the closest Lex had ever heard Gabriel come to babbling. This must be a big deal.

"Okay, so what do I do? I mean, I've never saved a vessel before. I'm the computer guy. I don't generally perform rescue missions."

"Do I have your permission to touch you and share a bit of my power with you?"

Lex's hand, which had been on his cup, suddenly jerked back, almost without his conscious control. Then he felt like an insensitive idiot at the look of hurt that appeared in the archangel's eyes. Yeah, he was handling this all really well. "Hey, sorry about that. I mean, yeah, probably I'm okay with that, if I knew what it even meant."

Now it was Gabriel's turn to look abashed. "I'm not handling this well. I haven't been myself in a very long time."

Lex just realized that Gabriel hadn't once met his eyes. Granted he'd only met the guy a couple of times, but he didn't remember that being a thing ten years earlier.

Before he had a chance to change his mind, he moved his hand back into easy reach. "Yes, you have my permission."

Gabriel tilted his head in question.

"Yes, I'm sure. You've helped me before, not hurt me. I mean, I know you do the vengeance thing, but you did it for me, not against me. And you said I'm your vessel. Why would I think you'd harm your own vessel?"

That got the closest to a real smile he'd seen all day. "I wouldn't. Ever." Gabriel reached out to touch Lex's arm. He felt…something…enter him. It wasn't frightening. Actually, it felt good, all warm and comfortable, like it belonged in him. A moment later, he felt…stronger? Like he could move faster? His vision sharpened, and he could see the faint outline of what looked to be six magnificent golden wings surrounding Gabriel.

Gabriel noted where his gaze had landed and nodded. "Yes, those are the real deal. Few can see them, but with my grace in you, you can see a bit of what I really am."

There was a resonance in Gabriel's voice, a rich harmony that sang to something deep within Lex.

"Is that your real voice?" Lex asked.

"As close as you can hear it without going deaf, yes. Which is more than anyone else can hear."

"It's beautiful," Lex said, in awe. "It's like a complex harmony between your vessel's voice and your real voice. You don't really sound like me anymore." A moment later, he realized he should probably ask the obvious. "You gave me some of your grace? Don't you need it?"

That startled an actual laugh from Gabriel. "You almost make me wish I needed a new vessel. I like you, Lex."

Now it was Lex's turn to look away. "Oh, I'm nothing special."

Gabriel hadn't moved his hand, and now he squeezed Lex's arm. "You're my vessel. Of course you're special."

Lex shook his head. "No, I'm really not. About all I can do is hack, and I'm getting older now. I'm not as quick as I used to be."  _ And I am so fucking alone. And tired of being alone. _

"Lex? Look at me." Gabriel's voice was gentle but commanding. Even though he didn't want to, he couldn't resist. Looking up, he saw sympathy and understanding in the angel's golden eyes. "What happened to you? You weren't like this the last time I saw you."

"It's a long story." Lex shook himself. "And this is about me helping you. So what do you need me to do?"

Gabriel gave him a long look, actually meeting his eyes. Lex kept his gaze steady and determined. The angel wasn't here to listen to his personal problems.

"I will listen, you know," he said.

"Can you read my mind?" Lex asked.

"No." He gave another small smile. "But I have centuries of experience in reading people."

"Good to know," Lex said. "But I'm okay. Who are these two vessels who need saving?"

Gabriel gave him a nod, although Lex knew the angel didn’t really believe him. Which was okay. He didn’t believe himself either. At least Gabriel seemed willing to stay focused on his request. "The first is Griff Krenshaw. He's in very bad shape. I think he's at a mental institution."

"How can you know that if you haven't been over there?"

Gabriel shrugged. "If I concentrate, I can get impressions. I know he's sick. I can feel that. Sometimes I get flashes of images, and it looks like a hospital or something like that."

Lex wasn't sure how that worked, but he didn't question it. "Do you know where he is?"

"Not exactly. I can open a portal to where he is, and I'm quite certain he's somewhere in the U.S. but beyond that, I can't say."

Lex nodded, thinking. "All right. With his name and appearance, I should be able to track him down. We'll need to go back to my apartment. I'll need my laptop." He had one that he had customized for field work. "So what? I'm going to do a jailbreak? That's really not my area."

Gabriel gave him an encouraging look. "If you can't hack your way into a hospital and make something work, you're not that much of a hacker."

Lex laughed at the challenging tone in the angel's voice. "I see what you did there."

"Besides, you have my grace in you. You'll find that will give you an edge. You're a bit stronger and faster. Your senses are sharper, and you'll be able to sense danger and maybe even nearby supernatural creatures."

Lex startled. "You mean stuff like that exists?"

Gabriel motioned to himself. "You mean I wasn't enough to convince you of that?"

"I guess I didn't think about it much." Which in hindsight was pretty silly.

"I'm not going to give you the rundown, but yeah, some of the things from your comic books exist." He tilted his head and gave Lex a considering look. "You'd make a pretty good hunter."

Something about the way he said the word made Lex think he wasn't talking about hunting deer or the like. "What do you mean by that?"

Shaking his head, Gabriel answered, "Too much to go into now. If you'd like, I'll fill you in when this is all over." He paused. "And I'd like to. You would get along very well with my Sam. Anyway, once you get Griff out of there, pray to me, and I'll open the portal back here."

Lex was curious about this 'hunting' thing, and who was Sam? But he understood that they needed to stay focused. He was starting to get interested. His job at the CIA had taken on a certain monotony lately. He knew it was him, not the job, but he was enjoying getting excited about something for the first time in forever. "Pray? Umm. I've actually never done that. I'm an atheist."

That startled a laugh from the archangel. "You encounter a pagan god nearly a decade ago, and you still consider yourself an atheist? And now you know angels exist?"

Lex found himself blushing, something else he hadn't done in a very long time. "Well, when you put it that way… It does sound bad, doesn't it?"

Still chuckling, Gabriel said, "Pray covers a lot of ground. Just think about me and call my name. I'll get the message."

"Okay." He had a thought. "You say Griff is sick. Anything I need to know? Will he be able to walk, or am I going to need to carry him out?" He was a bit worried about that. He wasn't in bad shape, but he was hardly muscle-bound.

"Right," Gabriel said, reaching inside his jacket and pulling out two vials. "I almost forgot."

He handed them over, and Lex looked at them curiously. They were filled with what appeared to be silver-blue mist. "What is this?"

"It's my grace. Exactly what I gave you. One for Griff, and one for Bill, the other vessel. I'm hoping a shot of my grace will start to heal Griff. The one for Bill will do pretty much what my grace did for you. It should boost Griff too, but it might take longer and not do as much. I've never given a vessel a bit of my grace before, so I'm not exactly sure what it will do."

Lex tilted one of the vials, watching the grace swirl slowly inside it. "How do I give it to them?"

"Hold it up to their mouth and open the lid. The grace will do the rest."

"You talk about it like it's alive." He had to admit the movement in the vial did almost look like it was aware. A tiny bit bumped against the glass, as if trying to reach out to Lex.

"It's not exactly alive, no. But it’s not exactly not alive either."

"Well that clears that up," Lex said, carefully stowing the two small bottles in his shirt pocket. "So, rescue Griff. Pray to you. Come back here. And then what about…was it Bill?"

"Yes. Bill Koehler. He's in the Midwest somewhere. He's not in immediate danger, but something is telling me that he's going to be very soon, and it's going to be bad. I'm hoping Griff will be able to help you so you're not facing that alone. That's why I'm sending you after him first."

Lex believed him, but he also heard a wistful note in Gabriel's voice when he spoke about Griff. Whoever this guy was, Gabriel clearly had a soft spot for him and wanted him out of danger soonest.

"Okay. Do we need to bring Bill back here too?"

Gabriel shrugged. "Not sure. Use your best judgement on that. I'm hoping not. I don't think it's a good idea to have too many of you clumped in one universe, but if it's that or leave him in peril, bring him. Griff needs to stay here, though." His tone left no room for argument. Not that Lex was going to argue with an archangel.

He had lots of questions, but none of them were going to impact this mission. At least he hoped they wouldn't. "I probably should be asking about a hundred more questions, but I'm under this delusion that I know what I'm doing. So I need to go back to my apartment to get my laptop and a few other things. Then you can open this portal or whatever. Meet you back here?"

"I wouldn’t mind coming with you," Gabriel said.

Lex couldn't come up with a good reason to say no, although he hadn't had anyone in his apartment in…Fuck? Was it really years? He needed a life outside of work. It was weird. Now that he had Gabriel's grace in him, it was like he was now aware of how bleak his life had been.

Which reminded him. "I do have a job, you know. They are expecting me to be there right about now. This is going to take time. I don’t want to get fired."

Gabriel gave it some thought. "Call in sick today? If you're not back tomorrow, I can call in for you."

Lex had to admit that would probably work. Gabriel sounded exactly like him to people who didn't have his grace in them. "All right. But there's still Bill."

"True. We'll figure something out when you get back with Griff."

"All right." He wasn't actually that worried about it. He suspected even if he got fired, it wouldn't break him up that badly. Eight years earlier, everything had gone to hell. Stiles and Terri died. Joshua had been a double agent. It had been a mess, and Lex hadn't felt the same about his job since. Maybe it was time to start something new.

He forced his thoughts back to the situation at hand and quickly ran through the state of his apartment. Finally, he decided Gabriel knew enough about him not to be surprised or bothered by computer hardware on most flat surfaces. "My car's outside." He paused and then added. "Unless cars are too mundane for archangels."

Gabriel stood up and motioned him to the door. "If I were at full power, I'd fly us and the car there, but since I'm not, you're driving."

Lex had so many questions he wanted to ask, but his apartment was less than a five minute drive away, and he knew there wasn't nearly enough time to satisfy all his curiosity. He parked and led Gabriel into his apartment. The angel glanced around but didn’t comment while Lex gathered his laptop and any peripherals he thought he'd need.

Which led him to ask, "Will my stuff work over there? I mean, alternate universe and all?"

Gabriel thought for a moment. "It should. I don't know about wireless networks and all that, though. Is there an AT&T in every universe? I'm not sure."

Lex tried to get his head around an angel knowing about phone companies, but he guessed Gabriel had spent enough time around humanity to pick up a few things. On the other hand, "That shouldn't be a problem for me. Unless their wireless protocols are completely different, I should be able to hack my way into a network. As long as electronics work the same."

"They should."

Lex tossed a few more items in his backpack, along with some protein bars, just in case. "Okay. I think I'm ready. Where do you want to open this portal thing?"

Gabriel indicated the middle of Lex's living room. "Right here, unless you have an objection."

Lex shrugged. "Just don't destroy any of my stuff."

"I won't."

"Then have at it."

Gabriel concentrated for a moment. A hole opened in the air, and Lex could see a cityscape on the other side. "Good luck," the angel said.

Lex nodded, took a deep breath and stepped through into another universe before his good sense talked him out of it.


	3. Chapter 3

Lex emerged in another city. It wasn't familiar to him, and he knew the first thing he'd need to do was get his bearings. He was in an alley—nice job, Gabriel—and he pulled out his phone. It was working, but NO SIGNAL was staring at him from the top of the screen. That wasn't unexpected, but getting his phone working was step one.

He stepped out of the alley and scanned his surroundings. It seemed earlier in the morning than it had been in D.C., so maybe somewhere in the Midwest? The height of the buildings was startling to his District-accustomed eye.

He spied a Starbucks. Perfect! Just what he needed.

He hefted his backpack and walked to the coffee shop. He avoided looking around or walking unusually fast or slow. No need to draw attention to himself any earlier than he had to.

He opened the door and glanced around on his way to order. About three quarters full with lots of people working on laptops. With some effort, he restrained his smile. So far, everything was going according to his quickly developed plan.

Lex ordered the largest black tea they had. He needed the caffeine to keep him alert. Fortunately, he had enough cash, and the barista didn't even blink when he handed it over. Lex knew his credit cards were worthless. For the moment. That was one of the things he'd fix as soon as he could.

He dumped a bunch of sugar in his tea and stirred it while he found a table. Ah! There was one in a corner where no one would be able to look over his shoulder. He took a couple of quick gulps of tea and took out his laptop.

Learning his location was his first goal. He logged into the Starbucks WiFi on his phone. As soon as he was connected, he pulled up Google Maps and quickly learned that he was in Chicago. All right. Good to know.

Next he needed phone service. This was the first mildly tricky part. As he brought up the available WiFi connections on his laptop, he paid attention to the various signals around him. All were secured. Good for them, but that wouldn't stop him for long.

It was better if he could spoof his location by using someone else's WiFi instead of Starbucks. He had a spoofing program on his laptop but another level of misdirection never hurt. Now to find the right person.

Ah! There was a good candidate. Go_Home_Tourist sounded like he might be a jerk. He clicked it and started trying standard passwords. He found one that worked on the third try. So a stupid jerk. Did he not know that 12345678. was third on the list of most overused passwords?

Once Lex was connected to Go_Home's portable WiFi, it was child's play to hack into his computer. Oh, surprise! From the email he was writing, he was an arrogant salesman, named Chuck McAlister. Who had named his computer StudGod. Lex rolled his eyes but kept on searching. Five minutes later, Lex had found Chuck's not-so-secret porn stash, some of which bordered on underage. It wasn't quite illegal, but it was close enough that Lex felt no guilt in using his connection for the next step in his plan to find Griff.

He needed cell service. He did some searching and discovered that Verizon existed in this universe and used the same protocols as in Lex's own. That made it easy. A few minutes later, he had a valid cell service, tied to the number of his own phone, courtesy of one of Chuck's credit card accounts. The guy would probably notice eventually, but Lex didn't plan on staying in this universe that long.

The last step to getting properly connected was getting service to his heavily encrypted portable WiFi device. To get that, he was going to need to hack into a government server. Fortunately, he knew them inside and out and noted that security in this universe was similar enough to where he'd come from. It took about twenty minutes and half of his tea, but he finally got in and activated service to his device.

He disconnected from Chuck and reconnected to his own device. Now he had a freer rein. With the help of his spoofing program, he was virtually untraceable as long as he didn’t do anything stupid. And it had been years since Lex had done anything stupid on a hack.

One more financial-related hack. He took out one of his credit cards and connected it to one of Chuck's so that if Lex used his card it would be charged to Chuck's account. He'd need the credit card to do some shopping later.

His next task was to find Griff Krenshaw. Assuming Gabriel had landed him in the right place, this should be fairly easy. First to discover if Griff were a resident of Chicago.

He started with the Department of Motor Vehicles, which yielded three Griff Krenshaws and variants: one Griff, one Grifford and one Griffin. Seriously, who named their kid after a mythological beast? But in a city the size of Chicago, that seemed about the right number for such an odd name.

Lex pulled up the three records, which included pictures. There was no question which one was the right man. There were minor differences between him and Lex: no sideburns and his hair was a little better groomed, but other than that, it was oddly like looking at a picture of himself. He checked Griff's age: five years younger than Lex, who had turned 40 just a few months earlier.

There was an address listed on the south side of Chicago. It took him less than five minutes to hack into the apartment complex's computer and learn that Griff no longer lived at the address from the DMV record.

He sat back and sipped his tea while he thought. What did Griff do for a living? That question sent him to the Illinois Department of Taxation. State taxation departments were generally easier to hack than the I.R.S. It took him a little while and a refill of his tea, but he finally got in and could look at Griff's W-2. Oh, now that was interesting. Griff Krenshaw worked for the FBI.

Lex was intimately familiar with the FBI databases in his own universe, and they were virtually the same here. It took him no more than ten minutes until he was looking at Griff's FBI employment record. This was where things started to get interesting.

Former military. Joined the FBI a few years earlier. Had been an exemplary agent until there was a family crisis. Something about a brother killing himself and everyone in the family except Griff.  _ That would mess up a guy _ , Lex thought. A shooting gone bad followed by what looked like a final chance assignment. The file ended with "Employment ended due to medical issues."

Okay. That was odd. A quick check of Griff's insurance showed that, although he was technically not an employee of the FBI, his insurance was still active and showed payments to Chicago Lakeshore Hospital. According to their website, they were a psychiatric hospital. Had Griff suffered some sort of breakdown following the suicide of his brother?

Hospitals were notoriously difficult to hack, and it took him another half of his tea to get into their medical files. Lex discovered that yes, Griff was a patient. His medical file was difficult reading. He had apparently suffered some sort of breakdown on his final assignment. He was currently under the care of a Dana Ehrhart. A bit more looking revealed that Dr. Ehrhart had been a research assistant under the man whose apparent suicide Griff had investigated. Something about that smelled off to Lex, and he did some digging into Dr. Ehrhart. Special needs child. Studying something called the HHS-282 gene. What the heck was that?

A Google search revealed that it was a gene linked to violent behavior. This was the first significant difference Lex had found between his universe and this one. He was certain such a gene didn't exist in his universe, but it apparently did here. Back to Griff's medical record. Yes, he had the gene. He blinked. No, he didn't. He had something different. A SHH-282 gene. What was that? Another Google search brought up nothing.

Lex sat back. Well, that explained what Gabriel had sensed about his vessel. Was SHH-282 better or worse than HHS-282? Was it a typo? Would angelic grace "cure" whatever it was? Lex had no way of determining that without testing it. Which meant he was going to have to break into a psychiatric hospital.

He went back to his computer, wishing that he had someone to help him. Well, he didn't so he was going to have to figure this out himself.

***

Fortunately, he'd had some idea that he might need to plan a solo break-in, and he'd come equipped for it. With his tiny photo printer and portable laminator, he was soon in possession of two fake Chicago Lakeshore Hospital name badges. Lex examined them. They weren't up to the quality of Terri's work, but he thought they would suffice. Generally people didn't get up and close with name badges. He knew it was odd that he still compared himself to Terri, but she had been the one who had trained him in the fine art of forgery, and he'd never connected with her replacement. Possibly another reason it was past time to leave the Agency.

Enough ruminating. Back to the mission. He had an assortment of pictures of himself on his laptop, but for Griff, he'd had to use his DMV photo. It wasn’t the best picture, but he hoped it would be enough.

He spent another hour planting some traps and triggers that he'd be able to activate via his phone if he needed a distraction or to open doors. He'd been able to download a map of the facility, and he'd located Griff's room. He thought there was only one electronically locked door he'd need to open to get there, but he knew it was better to prepare for the worst.

That was all he could do from Starbucks. For the next part of his plan, he needed the right attire.

Lex packed up his laptop and other equipment and called an Uber to take him to a medical supply store where he purchased two sets of scrubs. The convenient part about breaking out someone who looked exactly like him was that he didn't have to guess at sizing.

Another Uber to Walmart for a second backpack. He didn't want to lug all of his equipment into the hospital, but he needed some way to carry the second set of scrubs.

One more Uber to a cheap hotel. Since he was using Chuck's account, which still had a couple of thousand dollars on its credit limit—Chuck was fairly average in his card usage, not quite maxed out but not completely paid off each month either—he could have stayed at a more expensive place, but he didn't want to take the chance that the credit card company would alert Chuck. A Motel 6 was safest.

In his room, he moved a few pieces of gear from his pack to the new one. He added the scrubs for Griff and checked the time. It was only mid-afternoon. He'd planned his break-in for around midnight, so he had plenty of time to kill.

Lex took a short nap but was too wired to sleep for long. When he tired of tossing and turning, he got out his laptop and gave himself a new Netflix account. There was this comedy series he'd been meaning to watch for a while about two guys on a convention circuit. One of them seemed oddly familiar to him, and he particularly enjoyed his character.


	4. Chapter 4

Even with the distraction of Netflix, the hours crawled by. He wondered what Gabriel was doing. Had he stayed at Lex's apartment or had he gone back to this Sam person? Just because he couldn't fly two people and a car didn't mean he couldn't fly himself, right?

He knew he was just trying to distract himself. He had planned this mission as well as he could, but he knew that things could always go in unexpected directions. Lex could adjust on the fly in the middle of a hack, but this was different. Wasn't it? Actually, the more he thought about it, there really wasn't that much of a difference between a hack and what he was about to do. One was in the computer world while the other was in the physical world, but they were basically the same otherwise.

As soon as he came to that realization, his heart rate slowed, and he was able to focus. He called another Uber to drive him to the hospital, changed into scrubs, squared his shoulders and left to do this.

Arriving at the hospital, he stood across the street, checking the flow of traffic in and out of the building. There was little, a couple of people on foot and one ambulance pulling into the Emergency Bay.

Good. At least this was starting well. He hefted his backpack and started across the street, moving with purpose, as if he belonged and knew exactly where he was going.

With his advance study of the building layout, he basically did know his route, and he moved easily through the halls, nodding vaguely but pleasantly at the staff as he passed them. This was a large enough facility that no one could know everyone, and he moved without comment until he came to the section of the hospital which housed the more dangerous patients.

Here, a security guard checked his badge, which was good enough to pass inspection. Lex let out a purely internal sigh of relief at that and mentally thanked Terri for all of her training. The guard checked that "Alexander Hamilton" was authorized to be in this wing. Lex had added his false identification to the approved list as part of his pre-preparation. He and the guard exchanged the expected banter about the name. Lex had used the name deliberately. When someone was bantering, they tended to be a little less vigilant.

The guard buzzed Lex through, and he continued his purposeful walk. Ducking down a hallway, he got a clipboard out of his backpack. Clipboards always made you look more official.

He knew Griff was about halfway down the hallway, and he made his way without looking too obviously at the door numbers. Finally, he stood in front of his destination. Glancing left and right to make sure no one was watching, he took his phone out of his pocket, opened an app and pressed a button. The door to Griff's room unlocked with a quiet buzz. He took a deep breath, not sure what to expect, and stepped in.

The room was dim, with just diffuse light from the hallway, but Lex had no trouble seeing the figure on the bed. Apparently this angel grace improved his eyesight? Griff was asleep, lying flat on his back, the only position he could lie in with his arms strapped to the bed.

How should he do this? Was it safe to unstrap Griff? Should he give him the grace first? He wished Gabriel had been a bit more forthcoming with information about what to expect, but maybe he really didn’t know.

Lex decided to give him the grace first. It was supposed to heal him, so maybe it would make him safer to unstrap. He took the vial out of his pocket and looked at it again. The silvery blue mist looked the same as before, except it was all bunched against the side of the bottle nearest Griff, as if it wanted to get to him.

Yeah, grace was weird.

Lex stepped forward, watching Griff closely. As he got closer, he saw that the man did look almost exactly like him. His hair was messier and still had all its gold color where Lex was starting to go silver-grey.  However, his features were older, as if he'd been through rough times and aged early. Now that he was in the same room, Lex felt some connection to him, as if he'd been reunited with a twin he'd been separated from at birth.

He leaned forward, opened the bottle and held the opening near Griff's lips. The blue-silver mist streamed out of the bottle and into the man's half-open lips. A moment later, his eyes opened, and he jerked against the restraints. "What the fuck was that?"

Lex took a step back, startled.

Griff tried to sit up, but the restraints stopped him. He lay back and turned to look at Lex. "Who are you?"

"I'm Lex."

Griff frowned. "Do I know you?" He blinked a few times, and his eyes widened. "Wait? You look like me." His expression clouded over. "Or is this just another hallucination." He shook his head. "At least you're not trying to kill me like most of them." His eyes cleared. "You're not trying to kill me, are you?"

Lex shook his head, not sure what to say to that. "No. I'm not here to kill you. I'm here to break you out, if you want to go."

For a moment, Griff looked lost. "I'm not safe, you know. I do want out, but I don't know what I'll do." His voice was almost wistful and pitched higher than it had been before.

"That stuff I gave you," Lex said. "It's supposed to make you better. I don't think you'll be dangerous." He hoped that was true.

"What was it?" Griff asked, his voice back to normal.

"Look, how about I explain after we’re out of here? I don't know that someone isn't about to walk in right now."

"All right." Griff raised his hands as far as they'd go. "You'll need to unstrap me first."

This was the dangerous part, Lex thought, but he was fairly certain Griff wouldn't hurt him. It was like the grace inside him was telling him this was okay. Lex shrugged, reached out and unfastened the heavy straps. Then, as Griff sat up and rubbed his arms, Lex knelt down to get the extra pair of scrubs out of the backpack. He held them out. "Here. These should make it easier to get you out of here."

Griff took them and stripped from his hospital gown with obvious pleasure. He donned the scrubs, and Lex thought he looked a thousand times better. He handed over the badge. "Here. Now you look official. Let's get out of here."

Griff motioned the door. "After you."

Lex hesitated for a second. The thought of having a potential killer at his back was unnerving, but his instincts still insisted he could trust Griff, so he went with it.

He poked his head out the door. The hall was still empty. He motioned to Griff, and they both entered the hallway. Lex noticed that Griff also fell into the same purposeful walk he was using.

Luckily, they made it outside without incident. Lex motioned Griff to a nearby bench while he called what he hoped would be his last Uber ride in this universe. While they waited, he sat down beside Griff. He expected the man to ask questions. What he didn’t expect was for him to slump down, unconscious against his shoulder.

Lex froze, not sure what had happened. He shifted enough to look at him, and, as far as he could tell, Griff was just asleep. He hoped that was all it was.

When the Uber driver arrived, Lex explained that his "brother" had worked two back to back shifts and was just exhausted. The driver helped get Griff into the back seat of the car. Lex noticed with some amusement that he surreptitiously took a sniff of Griff's breath, presumably checking for alcohol.

Once at Lex's hotel, he managed to rouse Griff enough to get him into the room without completely carrying him. Once he opened the door and staggered into the room and settled Griff on the bed, the man relaxed into complete unconsciousness again.

Lex wanted to get him back to Gabriel to make sure nothing was badly wrong. He was already growing fond of his sort-of twin. He changed back into his regular clothes, stuffed the new backpack into his old one and considered.

How did an atheist pray? Was he supposed to sound pious? Did he just talk normally?

Finally, he decided to just be himself. If Gabriel couldn't handle it, he wasn't much of an archangel.

"Yo, dude. I've got Griff. If you want us to save the other one, you'll open that portal to get us out of here." He paused and added. "Umm, Archangel Gabriel, sir. Just in case you needed to hear your name to make it clear who I'm praying to."

He thought he heard a faint chuckle as a portal opened on the other side of the room.

Lex grabbed his backpack, hoisted Griff into a fireman's carry and crossed back to his own universe.


	5. Chapter 5

Gabriel was grinning at him when Lex stumbled into his living room, but as soon as he saw Griff, he stepped forward to take the man.

"You want to take him into my bedroom and put him on my bed?" Lex asked.

Gabriel took him, and Lex followed the angel into the bedroom.

Gabriel gently settled Griff on the bed, making sure all of his limbs were comfortably arranged. Then he put a hand on the man's forehead and closed his eyes in concentration.

"What's wrong with him?" Lex asked.

Gabriel frowned and waved his other hand to silence Lex, who obligingly shut up. A moment later, he thought he felt…something from Gabriel. It was like the grace within him was reacting to whatever the angel was doing.

Gabriel shook his head and motioned Lex into the living room.

They both sat down, and Lex cocked his head in question at Gabriel.

"I'm not entirely sure, so I'm guessing here, all right?" Gabriel said.

Lex shrugged. "Not a problem. Guess away. I'm so far out of my depth now that I'm not sure I'll get my head above water anytime soon."

Gabriel gave him a small smile. "You're doing well so far. You got him out." He raised an eyebrow. "But what was that thing you called prayer?"

Lex chuckled. "So you did hear the actual words, not just the intent?"

"Oh yeah."

"Atheist, remember?" Lex gave him a wink, somewhat surprised that he was sassing an archangel.

Gabriel barked out a laugh. "Still hanging on to that, kiddo?"

"What can I say? I'm stubborn."

Gabriel's expression grew sober. "So, about Griff. Yeah, I was right to worry about him." He paused, as if gathering his thoughts. "So, I guess this is the best way to describe it. Vessels are different at a genetic level. You are actually slightly genetically different from other humans. It's required to be able to house an angel. And since you and Griff are vessels for an archangel, you're even slightly different from angel vessels. Make sense so far?"

Lex nodded. Well, if by "makes sense" he meant "not totally lost" or "following the words at least." This whole vessel thing was still definitely weird.

"All right. So the thing with Griff is that his genes have mutated somehow. He's still a vessel, I think, but now there's something else going on. My grace in him is trying to reverse it and make him a 'normal' vessel again."

That reminded Lex of something. "Hey, that actually makes sense, in weird way." He scrambled for his laptop and booted it up. Gabriel waited, an interested expression on his face.

Lex pulled up Griff's file, which he had saved to his laptop. He got to the part about the weird gene he had and turned his computer so Gabriel could see it. "He apparently has this weird gene that they don't know what it is or exactly what it does. Might this be the mutated gene?"

Gabriel took a look at it and shrugged. "Could be. I'm no geneticist."

"Any idea what the mutation does to him?"

Gabriel thought for a moment. "It was hard to delve him, but if I had to guess, hallucinations, maybe? Vessels by their nature are more attuned to things other people can't see and hear. If I weren't in this vessel, I could still communicate with you."

Lex nodded. "That makes sense. Lots of stuff in his file talked about how he hallucinated demons and his dead brother and other stuff." He glanced over the file. "I'm not a doctor, but I don't think they were actually treating him. I think they basically stuffed him in there and were going to leave him in that cell indefinitely."

The rich, wet scent of an approaching thunderstorm filled the air, and Gabriel’s eyes glowed again. "That's why I wanted you to get him out of that place. He's not going back. Ever."

Lex sat very still. He knew Gabriel wouldn't harm him, but an angry archangel was still an intimidating sight.

A moment later, the display faded. "Sorry about that."

"Not a problem. Now that I'm back here, and we're safe, I'm pretty pissed about it too."

"Beyond the gene, he's malnourished and suffering from severe depression." Gabriel glanced over his shoulder at the bedroom. "I did what I could to heal him, but I'm still low on juice, so there's only so much I can do. My grace is in him, doing what it can for him. That's why he's so soundly asleep. It can work better if he's out."

That reminded Lex how tired he was. He'd been awake for most of 24 hours now, with no more than a short nap earlier. "Speaking of which, I need to crash too."

Gabriel waved him in the direction of the bedroom. "Have at it. We need to get you two to Bill, but I'm not sensing that we need to get you there immediately. He still has some time." He motioned the bookshelves that took up one entire wall of the living room. "You've got plenty to keep me entertained."

Lex stood up and went to his bedroom. He debated brushing his teeth and all that, and decided he'd sleep better if he did. He went through his pre-bed ritual as quickly as he could, though, and changed into a fresh t-shirt.

Griff had curled up on one side of the bed, leaving plenty of room for Lex, who shrugged. It was basically like brothers sharing a bed, wasn't it?

He maneuvered Griff under the blankets. The other man didn't even stir as Lex shifted him. Then Lex lay down on the other side of the bed and was out almost before his head hit the pillow.

***

He had no idea how long he'd slept when sounds of distress awoke him. Lex sat up and saw Griff tossing beside him. He was making low moaning sounds in the back of his throat. Lex was moving before he was conscious of it. He reached out and pulled his "twin" in close.

Griff came awake with a start and started thrashing. Lex spoke to him, calmly and soothingly, not sure where the words came from but trusting in them.

Footsteps sounded in the doorway, and Lex turned to see Gabriel entering the room. He waved off the archangel, not sure that Griff was in the best headspace for meeting another who looked just like him.

Gabriel gave him a raised eyebrow in question, but Lex repeated his motion. He was sure for now.

The angel left, and Lex turned his attention back to Griff, who was curled up against him, face pressed into his chest.

Griff finally spoke. "Lex?"

"Right here, Griff. You're safe now."

"Where are we?"

"My apartment. No one knows you're here, so they can't find you." Entirely true, and he'd cover the whole "different universe" thing later.

Griff was sobbing softly. Lex held him and rocked him until his tears dried up.

"Bad dream?" Lex asked when Griff had calmed.

"Always," Griff replied.

Lex frowned. Wasn't Gabriel's grace supposed to help with that?

"You want to talk about it?"

Griff shook his head, which was still pressed up against Lex's chest. "Not really. It never helps."

"I think getting you away from that place will help." He paused and decided it was time to at least introduce the idea of Gabriel. "There's someone else here who wants to help too. And I think he can."

"Another therapist?" Griff asked, his voice muffled.

"Not exactly. I'll introduce you when you're ready."

Griff stirred and sat up. "Sorry. Didn't mean to cry all over you."

Lex shrugged. "If I can help, I will."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are you helping me?"

That was actually a really good question. Lex gathered his thoughts before answering. "There's more to this than I can explain without introducing you to someone, but for now let me just say that I'm already thinking of you as a sort of brother, and you help family, right?"

A soft voice spoke from the doorway. "Family don't end in blood. A wise man said that once, and it's true."

Griff's head shot around to look at Gabriel. "Who are you?" Lex watched him blink and shake his head. "Another one who looks like me? What the heck is going on?"

"I'll explain. Meet me out in the living room when you're ready." Gabriel turned and left.

Griff looked at Lex, confusion written all over his face.

"I know it's a lot to take in," Lex said. "But he will explain. Trust me."

Griff shook his head. "That's the weird thing. I  _ do _ trust you, but I don’t know why?"

Lex gave a short laugh. "Join the club. I trusted you back at the hospital."

"You shouldn't have."

"I know you won't hurt me." Lex gave him a little nudge. "Bathroom's over there, if you want to use it."

Griff glanced in the direction Lex had indicated. "Yeah. I do need that." He paused. "Any chance of a shower?"

"Clean towels are hanging on the rack." Lex got up from the bed and started for the dresser. "I'll get you a change of clothes."

Griff laughed, for just a second, but it was a laugh. "I guess anything you have will fit me."

Lex shot him an encouraging grin over his shoulder. "Yeah, pretty much."

Griff got up and headed into the bathroom. As soon as Lex heard the shower start, he walked in with a clean shirt, underwear and jeans. Then he went into the living room.

Gabriel was sitting in Lex's favorite reading chair, a book open on his lap. He noted idly that it was the third book in the  _ Wheel of Time _ series. He motioned to it. "You've read the first two?"

Gabriel shook his head. "Nope. Been meaning to. I started the first one when you went to get Griff."

Lex blinked. "That was some fast reading."

"Hello. Archangel." Gabriel motioned to himself with a wink.

"Jumped the gun a bit there," Lex admonished, ignoring the whole "archangel" thing. He was pretty sure he had Gabriel's measure by now. Kind of like Joshua, his old boss. He still missed the guy, who had retired about five years earlier. "I thought I motioned you to wait out here."

Gabriel shrugged. "So sue me. I get impatient sometimes."

Lex wandered into the kitchen, deciding between coffee and tea. He thought he'd only gotten a few hours sleep, and he needed to be at least semi-alert. Coffee, then. It woke him up better. He started some brewing. "Do archangels drink coffee?"

Gabriel had followed him into the kitchen. "They prefer hot chocolate but will take coffee in a pinch. Provided there is sufficient sugar."

Lex reached under the counter and brought out an unopened bag of sugar. "This enough for you?"

Gabriel laughed. "For one cup, maybe."

Lex turned serious. "I thought your grace was supposed to help him. He's still having nightmares."

Gabriel tapped his fingers on the counter. "It will take time. I know angels are supposed to work miracles, but in this case, I think we're going to have to be patient."

"Is he going to be up to coming with me to help Bill?"

"He's going to have to be. Something tells me it won't work without him."

Lex nodded as he got the creamer out of the fridge. "Then we'll make it work."

Just as Lex was pouring coffee into two mugs, Griff came wandering out of the bedroom. He'd dressed in the clothes Lex had left for him, and he looked better. Still tired and pale, but better.

He was eyeing Gabriel with a wary expression. "Who is this? And what is going on? Why do you all look like me?"

Gabriel started stirring sugar into his coffee while Lex asked. "Coffee first? Then explanations?"

Griff's eyes darted to the two steaming mugs. "Sure." He frowned. "I can't remember the last time I had coffee."

Coffee in hand, Lex motioned everyone back into the living room. It struck him as odd that he was taking charge of this motley little band of sort-of brothers. Surely the archangel should be leading, but Gabriel seemed oddly willing to let Lex lead.

Gabriel went back to the reading chair, leaving one less-comfortable old wooden chair with a threadbare pillow on it and the couch. Griff stopped, obviously unsure of where to sit.

Lex made it easy on him. He settled on the couch and motioned to Griff to join him. The younger man did so eagerly, sitting on the far end of the couch. Lex shook his head, reached out and pulled him over, leaving one arm over Griff's shoulders to ground him.

Griff took a couple of sips of coffee, eyes darting back and forth between Gabriel and Lex.

"You get to explain," Lex told Gabriel. "This is your show."

"Looks like you're the one leading it now," Gabriel remarked mildly.

"In that case, I'm still telling you to explain," Lex said, letting a smile reach his eyes to indicate he wasn't being entirely serious.

However, Gabriel nodded and launched into the whole vessel thing. He let his grace glow in his eyes, which made Griff press himself closer to Lex. The hacker casually moved his arm to around Griff's chest.

“I can see his wings,” Griff said, relaxing. “They’re beautiful. All golden.”

Lex had been able to see them too, when Gabriel made his eyes glow. He was vaguely aware of them at all times, but when the archangel let his true nature through, they were more prominent.

“I’ve seen them too, Griff, and yes, they are.”

Gabriel took the comments without saying anything, but Lex noticed he took a little bit longer to mute his display than he had at the coffee house. He smiled to himself. Archangels could be a bit vain. Who would have thought it?

Everyone had finished their first mug of coffee by the time Gabriel had finished. Lex had added his part in getting Griff out of the hospital, downplaying his hacking. From the sharp look Gabriel gave him, he knew the archangel had caught him at it.

Griff turned his empty mug around in his hands. Both Lex and Gabriel gave him time to process. It was a lot to take in all at once.

Finally, Griff asked, "So I'm really not in the same…universe as I was?"

"Nope," Gabriel answered. "And unless you have a reason to go back, you're not going back there." His tone was firm.

"Why not?"

"It wasn't a good place for you, Griff," Lex said. "We don't think they were trying to help you."

"But you are?"

"We're trying," Gabriel said. "I think my grace will help heal you, although it will take time."

Griff put a hand to his chest and pressed inward. "I can feel it there. It's warm."

Lex suddenly became aware of the piece of grace within him. Griff was right. It did feel warm.

"I'm not sure how much help I'll be," Griff went on. "I've been a mess for a long time. I feel a little bit better, but I'm not sure you should be trusting me."

Lex squeezed him. "You did fine on our way out of the hospital. You're an FBI agent. You've got training I don’t have, and we're going to need that."

Gabriel added, "You're a vessel. You're my vessel. And you've got my grace in you. You'll surprise yourself with what you can do."

Griff still looked doubtful, but his shoulders lifted, and he sat up straighter.

Just then Lex yawned. The coffee had helped, but he still needed more sleep if he was going to function and help save anyone else.

Gabriel motioned both of them back to the bedroom. "Get some more sleep. Both of you. Big day coming up, and you'll want to be rested."

Griff shook his head. "I don't think I can sleep anymore. I'm tired, but I don't think I'm tired enough to go deep enough to avoid the nightmares."

Lex paused, halfway to his feet. He hadn't anticipated that problem. But Griff needed more sleep.

Fortunately, apparently archangels had an answer to at least some problems. "Not a problem, Griff. I can help you sleep and go deep enough that you won't dream, at least for a few hours."

Griff got up, obviously not believing it but willing to try.

They all trooped back into the bedroom, and Lex lay down gratefully. He watched though, to see what Gabriel would do.

The angel motioned Griff to get comfortable then put a gentle hand on the man's forehead. As far as Lex could tell, he went to sleep immediately.

"Want the same?" Gabriel asked, hand raised.

Lex shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"

Gabriel touched him, and Lex fell into gentle, healing darkness.


	6. Chapter 6

The next morning was a bit rushed. Griff was moving slowly, and Gabriel was getting anxious. He didn't say, but Lex had the impression he'd sensed something overnight. Perhaps Bill was in more immediate danger than they'd thought?

Lex packed bags for both himself and Griff. He'd planned for being gone longer this time. The last mission had been straightforward: get Griff out. He suspected this one would be more freeform. So he packed a few changes of clothes and enough protein bars for a week. He also made sure he had all the computer equipment he might need. He was certain he'd need to do another hack when he got there to get access to the local version of the Internet.

He’d given Griff a pair of his jeans, a faded red button up and his spare jacket, a light one in black cloth. He had dressed similarly, going for practical and comfort.

Gabriel had given some thought to Lex being away from work. Apparently his Sam had some hacking skills and had manufactured the obituary of a non-existent uncle for Lex. It was thin, but it had been enough to get him a few days of bereavement leave. Lex was even less concerned than he had been before going to get Griff. He was doubting he was ever going back to the Agency. He had no idea what he'd do, but he'd figure that out when they got back from saving Bill.

Finally, they were ready. Griff did seem a bit better again after more sleep, but Lex still had concerns. Before Gabriel opened a portal, he did another healing on the man. From the doubtful expression on the archangel's face, he suspected it hadn't done much.

"Same as last time?" Lex asked. "Find Bill, avert whatever is happening to him and pray to you for a portal home?"

"Pretty much," Gabriel answered.

"Do we bring Bill back too?" Griff asked.

Gabriel shook his head. "Lex and I already discussed this. I'm hoping you'll be able to figure out what's happening with him and stop it so he can stay where he is. I don't think it's a good idea for too many of you to be here."

Fear darted through Griff's eyes, and Lex reached out to squeeze his shoulder. "Don't worry. We've already agreed you are staying."

Griff looked relieved and said, "Good. They weren't bad enough to wake me up for long, but I'm pretty sure I had a couple of nightmares last night about going back, and…well…they weren't good."

Gabriel clapped him on his shoulder and said, "Kind of the definition of a nightmare. Like I said, you're not going back."

"I think we have everything, Gabriel," Lex said. "Want to send us through now?"

Gabriel nodded, concentrated, and a portal opened up again in the middle of Lex's living room. The hacker reached out, took Griff's arm and led him through.

Into the middle of a road in the middle of nowhere. Rolling fields were all Lex could see in every direction.

"Where the hell are we?" he asked.

Griff adjusted the shoulder straps of his backpack—the one Lex had purchased in Griff's universe—and looked around him. "City boy?" he asked.

"Pretty much," Lex answered. "I've been on missions in other countries, but in the U.S., I've stayed to the coasts and the big cities.”

Griff nodded. "If I had to guess, I'd say somewhere in the Midwest. Kansas, Nebraska. Maybe even South Dakota. My first field office was in Nebraska, so I got to know the look."

"How are we going to find Bill? He could be anywhere!" Lex was starting to think he hadn't packed nearly enough food.

Griff shrugged, glanced down the road both directions and started walking. "Gabriel opened a portal pretty near me, didn't he?"

Lex hurried to catch up. "Yes. And where are you going?"

"Got to go one direction or another. A car'll come along eventually, and we can hitch a ride to the nearest town." He motioned to Lex's backpack stuffed with computer equipment. "Then you'll use all that to do your hacker thing and find Bill."

Now that they were on their mission, Griff seemed more stable and less anxious. Lex was grateful, suspecting they could become a good team in time.

As Griff had said, it was less than ten minutes before a car drove up behind them. Griff didn't hesitate, turning and sticking out his thumb.

"You've done this before?" Lex asked as the car pulled up.

"Sure. I took a year off between graduating high school and joining the military. Hitched my way all over the country."

Since he was here to tell the tale, Lex assumed that meant he hadn't run into one of the serial killers his mom had always told him were the only people who picked up hitchhikers.

The car, an old beat up Chevy, slowed, and a dark-haired man who could have been anywhere from 30 to 50--his features were that neutral--reached over to open the passenger door. "Where you two headed?" he asked. His accent was had an East Coast clip to it, which made Lex question Griff’s Midwestern supposition.

Lex wasn't at the right angle to see the license plate and wished he'd thought of it as the car had pulled up.

Lex gave him as thorough a look over as he could. He'd been taught to evaluate threats, but nothing about this guy was setting off alarms in his head. He shot a quick glance over to Griff who gave a tiny shrug and nod.

"The nearest town," Lex said. 

The man squinted at them. "You two brothers?"

"Yes," Lex said, it being the easiest explanation.

"Hop in," the man said. "Jericho's just about ten miles this way. It's the closest town."

"Sounds good," Griff said. He climbed into the passenger side and motioned Lex to get in the back seat.

Lex did so, thinking it was a good idea. He could open his backpack without the driver seeing. Not that he had much in there which could be used as a weapon. He'd never carried a gun, and he was regretting it now.

He thought for a moment and then had an idea. As quietly as possible, he started to unzip his pack. Just then, Griff started up a meaningless but distracting conversation with the driver. As Lex had suspected, they would make a good team.

He got his pack open, and luckily, what he needed was near the top. He reached in and took out a long USB cord. It would make a handy garotte in a pinch. The driver was probably fine, but why take chances?

They drove for several miles. Lex ran the cord through his fingers, feeling more foolish as each mile passed by uneventfully.

Suddenly, though, there was an ominous  _ click _ and all the hairs on the back of his neck rose. He saw Griff stiffen in his seat.

"What was that for, man?" Griff asked, his tone deceptively casual.

The driver turned to grin at Griff. It was the grin of a killer. Lex knew. He'd seen plenty of them. "Child locks. Can't have the two of you jumping out the car."

Lex gripped the cord tighter. He tried to communicate  _ Be ready _ to Griff, but he didn't know if the message had gotten across.

Griff tried his door, probably on reflex. Nothing happened, of course.

The man continued speaking, "Never had two brothers before. Sounded like it might be fun. I'll take you two somewhere quiet." He reached between his legs and pulled out a large gun.

Lex was moving before the driver had time to point the gun at either of them. He leaned against the seat in front of him and whipped the cord around the man's neck. The driver immediately started thrashing, and the car, still travelling at near-highway speeds, swerved onto the shoulder.

Griff was knocked against the passenger door. He recovered quickly and scrambled across the seat to grab the wheel. While Lex pulled as hard as he could to keep the driver from interfering, Griff managed to get the car back on the road.

The driver jammed his foot down on the accelerator, and the car shot forward. Lex almost lost his grip on the cord, but he managed to keep hold of it. Unfortunately, the driver got a hand between the cord and his neck. Lex braced his feet against the seat back and pulled harder. He could already feel the strain in his arms, and it had been less than a minute.

Griff suddenly screamed and scrambled backwards in his seat, cowering against the passenger door. The car swerved into the opposite lane. Lex swore, feeling his shoulders strain in their sockets as he fought to keep hold of the cord and not go toppling to the other side of the car.

The driver continued to fight back. What was up with this guy? It was like he had super strength or something.

Lex had an idea. If Griff could pull himself together. "Griff!" Lex yelled. "I'll hold him. You lean over, open his door and push him out."

The driver fought harder. By now the car was bumping over the shoulder on the opposite side of the highway. It was a miracle they hadn't crashed and killed themselves yet.

Griff shook his head, still huddled against the door.

"Griff! We're going to die if you don't!"

For a moment, he thought Griff wouldn't be able to do it, but then the other man shook himself, uncurled and, fear and reluctance evident in every motion, he leaned over, scrabbling for the door handle. The driver tried to fight him off with his free hand, but Lex found a bit more strength and pulled harder, buying Griff the couple of seconds he needed.

Griff managed to get the door open. Still maintaining his hold on the cord, Lex leaned forward and pushed, along with Griff, who scrambled to get his feet under the dash. Just as Lex thought they weren't going to manage to get him out of the car, Griff managed to goose the accelerator. The car shot forward, and the force was just enough to throw the driver from the car.

Griff sat and shivered while Lex threw himself over the seat and scrambled into the driver's seat. He was just in time to grab the wheel before the car went into a ditch.

He steered back onto the road, checking in the rear view mirror. To his horror, he saw the driver running toward them. How was that even possible?

Griff was screaming something, but Lex couldn't hear him over the road and wind noise from the open door. The car fought him, and Lex somehow managed to grab hold of the door with one hand while steering with the other. He got the door closed and accelerated. Finally, he started getting ahead of the driver.

They shot down the road as fast as the old car could travel. Lex had no idea where he was or how he could get away from the man who had tried to kill them. They needed to get off the main highway. Surely he'd expect them, two strangers, to stay on a familiar road?

He wanted to ask Griff to help, maybe by looking through the glove box for a map. However, the other man was curled in on himself, arms around his knees, staring at the floor of the car. No help there.

Lex saw an exit and decided to take it. He vaguely noted that the sign on the exit, "Jericho," was the same name the driver had mentioned. Nothing for it. He took the exit as fast as he could and settled on the new road.

Nothing happened for half a mile until there was a loud BANG! The car jerked. Lex hit his head on the steering wheel and knew nothing else.


	7. Chapter 7

NOW

Sarah closed the passenger door and walked back to the driver's side. He seemed to be the more injured of the two, and she hoped he would be an impediment if the passenger awoke and tried to come at her.

Positioning herself so she could see both of them, she took her phone out of her pocket and called Bill.

"Sarah? What's up?" He sounded concerned, logical, since he had asked her not to call him while he was on duty, except in the case of an emergency.

"I'm fine," she said immediately. She could hear office noises behind him and was glad he was at the station instead of on patrol. "I need you to come out here. I'm about a mile from the on ramp to the highway."

"Why?"

She debated what to tell him but decided he really needed to see it for himself. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you, but trust me. I wouldn't call if it wasn’t important."

She knew her Bill and could almost see his furrowed brow as he debated between doing as she asked and finishing his shift. Finally, he said, "All right. I'll be there in a few minutes."

She realized then that she had been holding her breath, waiting for his answer. "Thanks. Oh, and Bill, don't bring Jimmy."

"What?"

"Just trust me on this one too. You can bring him in later if you want, but for right now, it's better that you see this alone."

"You know you have me worried on the verge of being pissed off?" he said. She could hear the tension in his voice.

"I know, but I've never asked for anything like this before, have I?"

"No," he said, sounding uncertain.

"Then believe me when I say that this time you really need to come out here."

"Right." Implicit in his tone was the message that if this was something trivial, he was going to be raging mad. However, all he added was, "I'll be there as quickly as I can."

"Thanks." She wanted to add that she loved him but was pretty sure it was the wrong thing to say right now.

She hung up and realized she had let her attention drift from the car while she had talked to Bill.

The passenger had awakened and was watching her, eyes traveling between her face and the gun she still held in her right hand. He didn't seem afraid of her, just cautious. Something in his gaze reminded her of Bill, alert and watchful while he waited to learn what was really going on.

"Ma'am," the man said. She probably shouldn't have been surprised, but she was. His voice sounded  _ exactly _ like Bill's.

She tapped the gun against the side of her leg, and his eyes tracked the motion. Sarah didn't want him to think she was threatening him, but she wanted to remind him that she had it.

"My name is Griff Krenshaw, ma'am. I know you don't have any reason to believe me, but I don't intend any harm."

Oddly, she believed him, and not just because he looked so much like Bill. There was something about him, an air that she associated with law enforcement.

"Are you with the police?" she found herself asking.

He shook his head. "No. I'm—" He paused and looked slightly abashed. "I was FBI," he finally said.

_ Was? _ She wondered what that meant exactly.

"What happened here?" She motioned to the car and the still-unconscious driver.

His gaze darted to the driver. "I'll explain what I can, ma'am, but if it's all right with you, I'd like to check on him." He motioned the other man. An odd expression crossed his face, almost like fear, which was strange. She hadn't even moved or done anything to cause that. "One thing. Can you move forward so I can see your eyes?"

Okay, she hadn't expected that. On the other hand, it wasn't a difficult request.

"You can cover me with your gun, if you'd like, but I really need to see your eyes."

She shrugged mentally, raised the gun to cover him and the driver, stepped closer to the car and knelt down so he could see her blue eyes.

As soon as he saw their color, he relaxed. "Thank you. I know it was an odd request, but I needed to know."

Just then, the driver moaned and shifted in his seat. Sarah straightened and stepped back. "Go ahead and check him," she said. She lowered the gun but remained watchful.

He nodded and moved across the seat, making no sudden moves. He lifted the man's head from the steering wheel and adjusted him so his head was lying in his lap. Griff lifted both his eyelids with a thumb and checked his eyes. "Dilating normally. Probably no concussion." Then he checked the head wound, which still oozed sluggishly. "Typical head wound. Bleeds like crazy but doesn't look dangerous."

"You know what you're doing," Sarah said, making it a question.

Griff nodded without looking up from the unconscious man. "First aid training in the military. I was interested and learned a bit more." He nodded. "He'll have a heck of a headache when he wakes up, but I think he'll be fine if we can get that wound cleaned."

"I have a first aid kit in my car." Bill had taught her to be prepared.

"That would be fine, ma'am."

She started for her car but stopped and turned back. "My name is Sarah." That seemed safe enough. It was a common name and shouldn't tell him anything. "I'd prefer that to more ma'ams."

He gave her a small smile. "Pleased to meet you Sarah." Griff motioned to the other man. "And this is Lex."

She wondered why he had so readily given his last name but not Lex's. Before she had a chance to wonder long, Griff's eyebrows drew together, and he added, almost to himself, "You know. I don't actually know his last name. I haven't known him more than a day or two and never thought to ask."

And wasn't that even odder? Two men who looked so alike and barely knew each other. What was going on?

Griff seemed occupied with continuing to check over Lex. For someone who barely knew the other man, his ministrations were gentle and caring. She didn't think there was a romantic attachment between them, but it was obvious there was some bond.

She wasn't going to get all her answers immediately, no matter how much she wanted to. Bill was always teasing her about her curiosity. She shrugged and went to her car to get the first aid kit.

When she came back, Lex seemed to be coming around. He was sitting up, propped against Griff, but his eyes didn't appear to be focusing properly. Sarah handed Griff the first aid kit.

"How is he?" She glanced at Lex's eyes and was by now unsurprised to discover they were the same amber color as Bill's. She darted a quick look at Griff's. Yes, his too.

"He'll be fine." Griff took the kit. "Hey, Lex. Relax, buddy. I've got you. Let me do something about that head wound."

Lex mumbled something, but Sarah couldn't make it out. She glanced down the road, in the direction of Jericho, and saw a dust cloud, signaling the approach of a car.

Griff had opened the kit and was busy cleaning the wound. He looked up, gaze traveling the direction of the approaching car. "The person you called?"

"Yes. Deputy Sheriff."

His eyes widened, and he gathered himself, as if to move. Lex's eyes, which had drifted closed again, opened. Sarah hastened to add. "It's okay. I didn't call him to arrest you or anything. It's just—" How to explain to them that there was yet another man who looked like them? She settled for, "Bill's okay. He'll have some idea of what to do." Which was good, because she was fresh out of ideas by now.

To her surprise, Griff smiled and asked, "I don't suppose this Bill looks like us?" He motioned to himself and Lex, whose eyes were finally focusing.

Sarah's eyes widened, and she took a step back. "How could you possibly know that?"

Lex spoke for the first time. Again, his voice was exactly like Bill's and Griff's. "Because he's the reason we're here."

Griff was taping gauze to Lex's head. "Hold still. I don't want you to start bleeding again."

"I think it might be best if we were both out of the car when he pulls up, Griff," Lex said.

"It'll be even better if you're not bleeding like a stuck pig over everything. Oh, that's Sarah, by the way."

Sarah listened to their exchange with some amusement. They sounded just like brothers squabbling over something.

However, by the time Bill pulled up, both men were out of the car, Griff with a steadying hand on Lex, who was still a bit wobbly.

Sarah walked to meet Bill's car, figuring she might need to run a bit of interference. She was more certain than when she'd called him that Griff and Lex weren't a threat, but Bill might take some convincing.

She was right. As soon as Bill got out of the car, his hand dropped to his holstered gun, and he exclaimed, "What the hell?"

Lex spoke. "Bill Koehler, I presume?"

Bill unsnapped the strap holding his gun in the holster. "How do you know my name?"

"Because you're in danger, and we're here to do something about it," Lex answered.

Before anyone could say anything else, Griff screamed, "He's coming!"

Sarah turned to see a man jogging toward them, from the opposite direction Bill had driven in from. His clothes were in tatters, but he moved as if uninjured.

Could this day get any more weird?

***

Lex was still having trouble focusing, and his head hurt worse than his most memorable hangover, but he reacted as soon as Griff yelled. Without thinking, he put himself between the approaching man and Sarah. Other than to note that she was present and female, he hadn’t gotten a good look at her earlier through his blurred vision. But now his senses seemed to sharpen, and he noticed her long dark hair, blue eyes and slightly heavy-set figure. She was sensibly dressed in jeans and a cotton blouse. That was good. It meant she could run.

Griff moved with him. He could feel the trembling in the other man's hand on his arm, but, for the moment at least, he was standing his ground. Lex wasn't sure what had spooked Griff earlier, but he was ready for anything. Although he certainly wished he had a gun or even the USB cord from earlier.

He noticed Bill had moved in front of all of them. He hadn't yet drawn his gun, but he looked ready to. He caught Sarah's movement from the corner of his eye, and he turned just enough to see that she also had a gun, drawn and held down by her leg, where the approaching man couldn't see it. He caught her eye for a moment and gave a small nod of approval. He didn’t know who this Sarah was, but she seemed to have a good head on her shoulders. He had a feeling they were going to need that.

The man was getting closer and was now within hailing range. He waved at Bill and yelled, "Thank you, officer, for apprehending them. I wasn't sure I'd ever get my car back."

Bill's eyes cut between the man and Sarah who gave a small shrug. Then she frowned and shook her head. Lex wasn't certain what that meant, but he noticed Bill didn't remove his hand from his gun.

"If you'll just come over here nice and slow," Bill said, his voice firm. "I'm sure we can sort this all out."

The man didn't change his pace. Lex could feel Griff's trembling increase. He was pretty sure the younger man was on the verge of bolting. He placed a hand on top of Griff's and squeezed gently. Whatever happened, he needed Griff here, not running off to who knew where.

"Officer, these men stole my car and left me a couple miles down the road. I'd definitely like to press charges."

Lex was amazed the man had gotten here so quickly. He knew he'd passed out when his head hit the steering wheel, but he didn't think he'd been out that long. They'd pushed the man from a moving car, and he looked like he wasn't even scratched, although his clothes were in tatters.

"I'm a deputy, not an officer," Bill said. "And I'd like you to stop where you are until I can sort everything out."

"Bill," Sarah hissed, just loud enough for the three of them to hear. "Why isn't he remarking on how all three of you look alike?"

Lex realized that was an excellent question, and his opinion of Sarah went up another notch.

Bill nodded, apparently thinking the same thing. He took a step forward. "Sir. Please stop."

The man ignored the command and continued, his pace not slowing.

Griff shifted his feet, and Lex knew he was going to run if the man got any closer.

At that moment, something completely weird happened. The man's eyes flicked and went…black? What the fuck?

Griff screamed again and pulled away from Lex. He didn't go far, just backed up against the car and huddled in on himself.

Bill jerked, probably in surprise, and his hand came off his gun for a moment. That was when the man started running, moving impossibly fast.

Gunfire sounded, and three bullets hit the man.

Lex realized Sarah had fired. More importantly, she had hit with each of her shots. So, observant and cool under fire. He liked this woman. For a moment, he was painfully reminded of Terri.

He didn’t have long to indulge in memory, however, because the man never even slowed. What? Three solid chest shots, and he was still moving? How was that possible?

Bill had just enough time to draw his own gun and fire twice before the man was upon them. Just as with Sarah's shots, they had no effect that Lex could see.

Adrenaline surged through him, and his mind raced. What did he have that he could use as a weapon? Nothing was coming to mind, and the man reached Bill. They scuffled, the man trying to get to Bill's gun, and Bill trying just as hard to keep it away from him.

Suddenly, something cool and cylindrical was pressed in his hand, and Lex's gaze dropped to see that Sarah had given him a small canister. Lex smiled, knowing what it was. Observant, cool under fire and well-prepared. Was she single?

Lex ignored the pounding in his head and darted forward, hoping for an opening. The man raised his head from the scuffle, apparently assessing Lex's threat level. That was all he needed. He raised the canister and triggered a blast of pepper spray. His aim was good, and the man fell back, clawing at his eyes. So bullets didn't work but pepper spray still hurt. Good to know.

Bill hadn't lost his grip on his gun, and he fired the entire magazine into the man. Those bullets had no more effect than they had earlier.

The man was recovering quickly from the effects of the pepper spray, and Lex was running out of options. Not sure what else to do, he tackled the man, bringing both of them to the ground. "Sarah, run! Get help!" She might be competent, but she was still a woman, and Lex wasn't going to let her get hurt.

Bill dropped his useless gun and joined Lex in attempting to hold the man to the ground. He was struggling, and damn! He was strong. Lex wasn't sure he and Bill together were enough to hold him.

"Griff, get over here."

The man got a foot under him and, amazingly, started to stand. Bill and Lex barely managed to get him back on the ground. Was he on some sort of drugs? That might explain the unusual strength, but he didn’t think even drugs explained the black eyes.

"Panic later, Griff. Help now, dammit!"

He thought he head Sarah talking to Griff too. He'd intended for her to run, but if she could get Griff helping, she could run afterwards.

The man surged upward again. Bill lost his grip, but Lex managed to hold on, just barely. They were going to lose him!

Just then, Griff finally joined them. He was panting, and Lex caught a glimpse of his eyes wide in fear, but he lent his strength to theirs, and they wrestled the guy back to the ground. Okay, maybe they could hold him long enough for Sarah to escape. Although he had no idea what to do then.

Was this the danger they were supposed to save Bill from? If so, they were doing a terrible job so far.

Later, he had no idea what made him try what he did next. He got a hand free, scrambled around until he got it on the guy's forehead, and he did…something. A tiny spark of silver-blue light, warm but not quite enough to burn, erupted from his palm, and the guy screamed. Smoke rose from his forehead.

Lex felt the grace within him surging, and he knew it wanted to do something, but apparently it wasn't strong enough. He wished Gabriel were here. Surely an archangel, even an underpowered one, would know what to do.

Still screaming in pain, the guy bucked hard, and all three of them almost lost their hold on him. If Griff hadn't been there, they would definitely have lost him.

Lex was out of ideas. He just hoped Sarah had gotten away.

Suddenly, a strong female voice with a pleasant Southern accent started chanting words. Were they Latin?

_ Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica. _

Was that Sarah? What was she chanting?

The guy started screaming louder and struggling harder, but his motions lacked purpose. They were able to keep hold of him, even though one of his fists hit Bill hard enough to draw blood. The deputy determinedly kept his grip, even as blood started running into his eyes.

_ Ergo, omnis legio diabolica, adiuramus te...cessa decipere humanas creaturas, eisque æternæ perditionìs venenum propinare... _

Lex wasn’t sure he'd ever believe what happened next.

One moment the man was struggling. The next, his mouth opened, and a thick black column of smoke erupted from him skyward.

The man stopped struggling, and he lay under them, motionless.

Somehow Lex knew he was dead.

What the fuck?


	8. Chapter 8

As soon as the smoke left the man and he slumped, three sets of golden eyes turned to her.

"What was that?" Lex asked.

"How'd you know to do that?" Griff asked.

"Are you all right?" Bill asked.

Sarah was oddly gratified that Bill had asked after her instead of asking what she'd done or how. Now that the demon, assuming that was what it was, had left, she was feeling shaky. She took a couple of steps backwards and leaned against the car.

Bill immediately came to her and pulled her into a hug. She hugged him back, heedless of the blood still oozing from his forehead wound. A crazy part of her brain pointed out that Bill and Lex matched now.

"The next time one of us tells you to run, you run, dammit," Bill said, his lips moving against her hair.

She leaned into him for a moment but then her good sense returned, and she pulled back, glancing at the other two men. Oddly, Lex looked both satisfied and slightly disappointed. She wasn't sure what that meant. "If I had done that, you'd be dead. I don't think anything else would have stopped him."

"What was that?" Lex repeated his question as he grabbed Griff's shoulder. The other man looked almost as shocky as she felt.

Not letting go of her, Bill added, "Yeah, and what was it?"

Griff surprised everyone by answering. "The _Ritual Romana_. It's used to exorcise demons."

Sarah wondered how an FBI agent knew that but supposed he must have worked some cult case in the past.

"Yes, that's what it is," she said.

"First, how'd you know to use it?" Lex asked, putting an arm around Griff, who was shaking and looked as if he might collapse. "And second, how did you have it memorized?" He walked Griff over to the side of the car and propped both of them against it.

Bill gave her a questioning look, and she sighed. "When you did…whatever you did, Lex, and I saw the smoke rising from him, it looked like—" She trailed off.

Lex grinned and finished her sentence. "It looked like the effects from a cheesy horror movie about demons."

"Exactly," she said, managing a shaky grin in return. "As for how I knew it—" Her gaze dropped to the ground, and she felt herself blush. "Well, I came across it in a book somewhere, and it sounded cool—"

Bill gave a small chuckle and said, "So, of course you memorized it."

She lifted her eyes and saw all three men sharing identical fond, amused looks. Even Griff had recovered enough to share in the brief bonding moment.

"Well, good thing I did!" she said, annoyed that three handsome, identical men seemed to be bonding at her expense.

Bill kissed the top of her head. "Yes, babe, we are all very glad you memorized it."

"And that you are a quick thinker under pressure," Lex added.

Griff just nodded at all of them. Sarah was growing concerned about him. The man did not seem to be well. In the middle of the fight, before she thought about the _Ritual_ , she'd tried to encourage him to help the others, and he had, but she thought it was a near thing. He'd been on the verge of bolting. He was brave. He'd demonstrated that by diving in at the end. But did he know something about the demons that the rest of them didn't?

Lex left Griff propped against the car, giving him an encouraging pat before moving away. He walked, slightly unsteady but determined, to the dead man and knelt down to start riffling through his pockets and clothes. Sarah had the impression it was something he was used to doing.

"Hey!" Bill exclaimed, moving away from her to stand over Lex. "What are you doing?"

Lex spoke, not even looking up from his search. "Trying to figure out who this guy was and why he wanted to kill us. Oh, and maybe why he was possessed…or whatever…by a demon."

That stopped Bill for a moment, but he finally said, "This is a crime scene. You can't just disturb evidence."

"You don't want anyone examining this too closely." Sarah was surprised that it was Griff who spoke. The longer she spent with the three, the more she was finding small differences. Lex spoke in a clipped, East Coast manner, completely at odds with Bill's slower, near drawl. Griff was as accentless as Lex, but his speech was slower and not as clipped.

"Why not?" Bill asked. Sarah knew he was still struggling to deal with everything that had happened or he might not have asked.

"None of this will add up," Griff said. Sarah noticed he seemed to be recovering from whatever had shaken him earlier. She remembered him saying he used to be FBI.

"He's got injuries that don't match the tears in his clothing. If I counted correctly, you and Sarah hit him with more than ten bullets. No one will believe he was still moving after so many, so why the overkill? Of course, Sarah's gun was used, and she's got residue on her hands. Do you really want anyone asking too many questions about why she was involved in a shoot-out?"

Lex held up the wallet he'd been examining. "Plenty of other questions. Like why does this guy have several thousand dollars, all in hundreds?"

Bill knelt down to take the wallet from Lex. He riffled through it. "Ben Miller. Virginia driver's license. One credit card. A key card." He frowned. "Nothing else."

Lex was nodding. "Yes, all of that's odd. No gym or other membership cards. No bank card either. None of the usual things you'd see in a city guy's wallet. Note the address on the license. Arlington. This guy's as city as they come."

Griff pushed himself off the car and came over. "So what's he doing in the middle of…what state are we in anyway?"

"Kansas," Sarah answered. "But how can you not know that?"

Lex sighed and stood up. "He's got nothing else on him. And the answer to your question, Sarah, is going to take a while. Anyplace we can take this that's more sheltered than by the side of the road?"

"What are we going to do with him?" Griff asked. "And the car?"

Lex shrugged. "Anyone got some matches?"

Bill stood up and pulled himself to his full height. Not that it gave him any height advantage over a man exactly his size. However, what he didn't have in height, he made up for in indignance. "We are not burning evidence!"

Griff stepped beside Lex, silently offering his support. "Not sure we have any better options. Unless you want someone asking the questions I just covered earlier."

Sarah had an opinion here, but she sensed it was better to let the three men sort it out.

Bill glanced back and forth between the two of them. Finally, he sighed and dropped his shoulders. "I don't like it."

Sarah knew that meant he'd go along with it, however reluctantly.

"Neither do I," Lex said. "But there's been so much about this that I haven't liked. Adding one more thing just doesn't seem that big a deal at this point."

Griff looked at Sarah. "Have any matches?"

Sarah sighed. She didn't like it any more than Bill did, but she saw the sense of it also. "Let me get my purse. I think I might have some in there."

She started for her car, but her steps faltered as she heard someone—Lex?—say, "Is there anything a woman doesn't have in her purse?"

She was going to have words later with Bill because she definitely recognized his chuckle at the comment.

However, she came back with her purse, which did contain a book of matches. Honestly, she wasn't sure why she was carrying them, but she wasn't going to make any comment to support Lex's completely sexist remark.

Bill and Lex lifted the body in the car—Griff refused to touch it. However, the former FBI agent had no issues with directing where to splash gasoline and made several suggestions on how to get the car burning properly to destroy the evidence. It occurred to Sarah that an FBI agent really did make an excellent criminal. What was the story behind him being a "former" agent?

As soon as the car was burning, they all made a hasty retreat. Sarah offered their house as a meeting place. Bill protested briefly but went along with the suggestion that he call in sick for the rest of his shift. He drew the line, however, at either Lex or Griff riding in her car. He insisted the two of them ride in his patrol car.

Before they left, Griff directed Sarah to drive several times over the tracks left by Bill's car. "It might not stop them from figuring out the tracks, but it was better than just leaving them plain as can be," he said.

That done, they started for her home.

***

Lex sat in the back of Bill's squad car with Griff. The former agent was starting to show signs of losing his composure again, and Lex put an arm around his shoulders and held him while he shivered. When he steadied a bit, Lex asked, "Griff, what was it about that guy that bothered you so much?"

He sensed Bill was listening also.

It took Griff a moment, but finally, he said, "The eyes. All my hallucinations had black eyes like that." He swallowed hard and added, "My brother kept trying to kill me, and his eyes…they seemed to look directly onto Hell."

Lex wasn't sure what to say to that. He'd never believed in either Heaven or Hell, but recent events seemed to be challenging his former lack of belief.

"You said I was in danger and you were here to do something about it?" Bill asked when it was obvious Griff wasn't going to say any more about demons.

"Yeah," Lex said. "But I’d rather wait until we were all together. It seems that Sarah is going to be a part of this."

"Not if I have anything to say about it!" Bill declared firmly.

"She seems to have a mind and ideas of her own," Lex said mildly. "Girlfriend?"

"Wife."

That explained a lot. And meant she was definitely off limits. Too bad. He thought he might have been able to like her.

Griff tapped his arm, shrugged and gave a small grin.

Everyone had an opinion.

"Can you tell me why we all look alike?" Bill asked, clearly eager to get the conversation away from Sarah.

"Falls under the same topic, I'm afraid," Lex said.

Bill seemed to run out of questions, which suited the hacker just fine. He had a few leads to follow up on, and he was running through a plan in his mind.

The rest of the drive went in silence.

It wasn't long until they pulled up to a small one story house. Sarah's car was already parked in the driveway. Bill parked on the street, and they all got out. Lex and Griff let Bill lead the way.

Lex glanced around. A small entryway led to a living room and then continued into a short hallway that led further into the house. He heard a loud baying bark from the back. Perhaps in a backyard.

"I'm in the kitchen," came Sarah's voice from beyond the living room. "I thought you might be hungry."

"I'm going to clean up, babe."

"Good idea," Sarah said.

Lex left them to their comfortable domesticity and carried his backpack into the living area where he found a comfortable couch, several chairs, a coffee table and an inexpensive entertainment center with a TV that looked several years old. So the Koehlers had enough to live comfortably but not enough for luxuries.

"Do you mind if I log on to your WiFi, Sarah?" he asked.

"Not at all." A moment later, she came into the living room with a small piece of paper. A string of random characters were scribbled on the paper. Lex glanced at it. 16 characters with a mix of upper and lower characters plus a few digits and special characters. He could have cracked the password in a few minutes, but his software was better than the average thief who cruised neighborhoods looking for unsecured routers. This was enough to keep them safe.

"Thanks," he said.

"No problem." Her voice sounded curious.

"I'm a hacker for the CIA," he said by way of explanation. There wasn't any need to talk about the fact that he didn't work for the CIA in this universe. He'd get to that in a few minutes.

"So you're going to check out the dead guy and find out who he was?"

"That's the idea."

He checked for Griff, who had settled in one of the chairs, head back, eyes closed. Sarah caught his eye and motioned in his direction. He tried to give her a reassuring smile, but she didn't look convinced. He shrugged and sat down on the couch, opening up his backpack and pulling out his laptop.

She gave him a small smile and went back to the kitchen. A few minutes later, he smelled coffee brewing. Perfect. He'd need that.

By the time he had his laptop booted up and connected to Sarah's WiFi, Bill came back into the living room. He'd cleaned and bandaged the wound on his forehead and had changed clothes.

Griff spoke, without even opening his eyes. "Lex. You're still covered in blood. You might want to change too."

Lex glanced down at his shirt and realized Griff was right. He was a mess. He'd been so absorbed by his upcoming work that he'd forgotten he'd been injured. His head chose that moment to remind him that, yes, it had been banged up and could use some attention too.

Bill grinned at him. "Bedroom and bathroom are back there." He motioned over his shoulder. "If you don't have a change of clothes in your backpack, you can find something that should fit in the closet."

"Convenient that we are all the same size," Lex said agreeably. "But I have a change of clothes in here."

"Toss your dirty stuff in the hamper, and I'll start a load as soon as you've changed," Bill said before sitting down on the couch and examining the laptop.

Lex logged in. "While I can certainly hack my way into the Virginia DMV, you should be able to run the guy's record using your own databases. Want to work on that while I clean up and change?"

He watched Bill's curiosity war with the technical illegality of what he'd just proposed. Curiosity won out. "Sure. I'll do that."

"Thanks," Lex said, and he got up and headed in the direction of the bathroom.

A few minutes later, he came back to the living room. Sarah had brought sandwiches and coffee. Bill and Griff were helping themselves.

Bill looked up as he came out. "Do either of you mind dogs? I've got Sadie out in the backyard—that's the one making all the racket."

Lex realized he could still hear a dog barking. He'd blocked it out while planning his approach to research.

Griff actually brightened at the question. "I like dogs."

Lex shrugged. "Makes no difference to me."

"Thanks," Bill said, as he got up to go through the kitchen to the back door.

"Anyone got any Tylenol?" Lex asked. Though cleaned and freshly bandaged, his head was still pounding.

Sarah put down the food and said, "I think I have some Excedrin Migraine."

Lex brightened at that. Painkiller and caffeine. "That would be great."

She came back a moment later with a bottle, which she handed over. Lex had wolfed down a sandwich while she'd been gone. Now he opened the bottle and shook at least six pills into his hand. He washed them down with half a cup of coffee, as usual ignoring the heat on his tongue. He was well used to it by now.

"Umm," Sarah said, looking and sounding concerned. "I don't think you're supposed to take more than two of those in a day."

He gave an unconcerned shrug. He'd taken more than the six he'd just swallowed without ill effects.

Sarah took the bottle back, side eyeing both it and him. He ignored it, having endured its like and more from Terri in the past.

Bill came back in just then, holding the collar of what Lex thought was some sort of hound mix. Maybe a beagle from the coloring?

Griff leaned over and put out his hand. "What's her name?"

"Sadie," Bill said as he released the dog's collar. Lex was just as happy the dog ignored him and made a beeline for Griff, who started petting her. Lex paid her just enough attention to decide she wasn't going to bother him and asked Bill what he had found from his DMV search.

Bill was watching Griff and Sadie, who looked to be already fast friends. The dog was on her back, paws waving in the air while Griff rubbed her belly. The man got down on the floor to be closer to her, and the dog wagged her tail. Right. Griff was a dog person. Check.

Apparently satisfied that Sadie would behave, Bill said, "Address of record matches what's on the license. No significant priors. He ran a red light a couple of years ago, but that's it."

"Huh," Lex said as he sat down and took back his laptop. He reached into his pack and took out his mobile hotspot.

"What's that?" Sarah asked.

"Encrypted hotspot," Lex said, absently, booting it up. "I need to activate it in your universe and then no one will be able to trace my activity."

"Our universe?" Bill asked, his tone incredulous. "Maybe you'd better explain why you're here first."

Oh yeah. As usual, he'd gotten so wrapped up in his planning that he'd forgotten he needed to fill Bill and Sarah on what was going on.

He gulped down the rest of his coffee and gave them the story, starting with meeting Gabriel at the coffee shop in his own universe, the short version of rescuing Griff and then their adventures so far in Bill and Sarah's universe. They both listened, but he could tell Bill was having none of it.

As soon as he finished, Bill said, "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Angels? Alternate universes? How stupid do you think I am?"

Griff spoke up, still on the floor, Sadie lying half in his lap and half on the floor. Lex thought it looked uncomfortable, but what did he know? He'd never had a dog. "I don't think you're stupid at all," Griff said. "But I can confirm at least the rescue part of the story. I'm glad to be out of that place, so I owe Lex for that. And I've met the archangel and seen his wings, so I'm convinced he's what he says he is. As for the rest, I can't confirm it but nor do I have any reason to doubt it."

"So I'm one of these 'vessel' things?" Bill asked, his tone making plain what he thought of the idea.

"That reminds me," Lex said, taking out the last vial of grace. He'd remembered to transfer it to the pocket of his clean shirt when he'd changed. "This is for you."

Bill took it as hesitantly as if it were a poison snake. "What's this?"

"Archangel grace," Lex said.

As they watched, the grace in the vial pressed itself up against the side nearest to Bill, just as Lex had remembered it doing when he'd handed the other vial to Griff. Sadie sat up and looked at it, expression eager, as if she could sense what was in the vial.

"I've got some in me," Lex continued. "I think it's what allowed me to burn the demon. I'm guessing if I'd been a full angel, I could have killed it that way. Griff has some in him too. It's supposed to be healing him."

"Healing him of what?" Sarah asked.

"I've been crazy," Griff said. "Now I'm a little less crazy, I think."

Bill didn't look as if that had reassured him in the slightest. Lex couldn't blame him. "What am I supposed to do with it?"

"Open the vial and…well…kind of swallow it down. That's what Griff did."

"How'd you get yours?" Sarah asked.

"Umm, Gabriel touched me, and…I don't know? Transferred it to me?"

"Other than making you able to burn demons, has it had any other effect?" Bill was looking at his wife like she was as crazy as Griff claimed to be by paying this any attention, but Lex could tell she was curious.

"It's supposed to make me a bit stronger, and maybe my senses a little sharper. I haven't really noticed that." He remembered something else Gabriel had said. "He also said I might be able to notice supernatural creatures, but obviously that didn’t happen."

Suddenly he noticed Bill was giving him an odd look. "What?"

"That part about you being stronger?"

"Yeah, what of it?"

Bill motioned at Lex. "Don't take this the wrong way, man. You're not in bad shape, but you don't look like you work out either. Am I wrong?"

Lex shook his head, not sure where Bill was going, but as long as he wasn't yelling about none of this being real, Lex wasn't going to argue. "No. I jog some, when I remember, but I don't lift weights or anything."

Bill nodded. "That's what I thought."

"Why?"

"Because when we were wrestling that guy, you were obviously having an easier time holding him than I was."

Lex shook his head. "What are you talking about? We nearly lost him like two or three times. If you hadn't been there--"

Bill was also shaking his head, and Sarah said, "No, he's right. You were holding him a lot easier than Bill was. I noticed it too."

Lex glanced over at Griff, who was nodding in confirmation. "I don't think it's increased my strength much. Maybe it's working too hard on healing me? But it's definitely made you stronger than you look like you should be. Faster too. I couldn't believe how fast you made it over the seat back in the car. I never could have done that. We'd have crashed for sure."

Now that Griff mentioned it, he had moved pretty fast and with unaccustomed agility back in the car. Maybe Gabriel had been right. He shrugged and said, "Then it should do the same for you, Bill."

Bill was looking at the grace again, something akin to respect in his eyes. He looked at Sarah, a question in his amber eyes, so similar to his own. Lex still wasn't over having two other guys who looked so much like himself, even if he was obviously the oldest of them.

Sarah shrugged and said, "It's up to you, Bill."

However, even Lex could hear the unspoken, _but I think you should._

Wow. Was she ever taking this well.

Bill watched the grace swirling in the vial for another few seconds before shaking his head, popping the top and breathing it in. Lex had the impression he was doing it quickly, before he had a chance to talk himself out of it.

As with Griff, there was no immediate effect, although Bill's eyes widened. "It's warm!"

Both Lex and Griff smiled, knowing exactly what he must be feeling.

"Do you feel any different, babe?" Sarah asked.

He shook his head. "Not really. Well, maybe."

"Feel like you're thinking a bit sharper and like if you moved, you'd surprise yourself by how fast it would be?" Lex asked.

"Kind of, yeah," Bill said.

"Then it's working," Lex said, turning his attention back to his computer. As he had in Griff's universe, he started hacking into the government server to activate his mobile hotspot.

"What are you doing?" Bill asked, suspicion in his tone. Sadie got up from where Griff had resumed petting her after the grace transfer and growled once at Lex. Griff soothed her with one hand while Bill said, "Easy, girl. Not to worry." The dog flopped back down on Griff's lap.

With one hand, Lex typed. With the other, he indicated his hotspot. "Like I said earlier, activating that. Then no one will be able to trace me. Unless I do something stupid."

"When's the last time you did something stupid?" Sarah asked.

"Three days ago, when I said I'd do this universe hopping thing."

She chuckled at that.

"Oh, you meant when did I last do something stupid during a hack?" He thought for a moment. "Maybe twelve years ago. I was young and overconfident then."

"What happened?" Bill asked.

Lex shrugged, back to typing with both hands. "I hacked the wrong database, and the CIA hired me. So all things considered, not even that stupid."

A fresh mug of coffee appeared at his elbow, and Lex nodded his thanks, too involved in what he was doing to do more than that.

Fifteen minutes later, faster than in Griff's universe, he was in the database and had activated his device. He switched from Sarah's WiFi to it and finally remembered that he was in the company of others.

He looked up to see two sets of eyes watching him, one amber, the other blue. Griff was leaning against his chair, dog curled in his lap, apparently asleep.

"Uh, sorry," Lex said, feeling the heat rising in his cheeks. "I get sort of involved."

"We sort of noticed," Sarah said, amusement in her tone.

"So what's next?" Bill asked. "I assume you don't think the demon was why you were sent here."

Lex shook his head. "I don't think so. All my instincts are telling me the demon is part of a bigger plot."

"Mine too," Griff said from the floor, though he didn't bother opening his eyes.

"That's why I wanted to get online," Lex continued. "I want to figure out what else this guy is a part of."

"Might be easier if we were in D.C." Griff said. Now he opened his eyes and sat up. "Checking out known associates and the like."

Lex grinned at him and talked while typing. "I'm glad you said that because I was just booking you a flight out of Kansas City International airport. I managed to get you first class on a direct flight."

Griff said, "I can't go alone," at the same time Bill said, "Why only him?"

Lex shrugged. "Two reasons. One, I'm terrified of flying."

Griff snorted. "You're CIA. You said you've been abroad. You didn't drive there."

Lex felt himself flush again. "Yeah, I have been in the field, and yes, that did mean long flights to other parts of the world. I hated every one of them."

"What’s the second reason?" Sarah asked.

He was glad for the save. "My talents are better used here, doing what I do best."

"Which is?" Bill asked.

"Starting by tracking down everything I can about our Mr. Miller. Then sifting through online forums looking for other mentions of demon activity."

"You'll just find a bunch of crap!" Bill protested.

"Exactly. Which is why I need to be the one to sift. This is what I do, Mr. Koehler. I sift through information, weeding out the crap until I find the one or two nuggets that tell us what we need." _I am good at it, yes, except for that one time. If I had done a better job, Stiles and Terri would still be alive._ He ruthlessly shoved that thought away. This time he would find what they needed. He wasn't letting people down again.

"Doesn't change the fact that I don't think it's a good idea to send me alone," Griff said. "I could get triggered into a flashback. At the wrong time, that could tank the entire mission."

Lex wasn't sure what to say to that. Griff might be right, but Lex knew he was still most useful here, on his laptop.

He wasn't surprised to hear someone say, "I'll go." He was surprised that it was Sarah and not Bill who said it.

He also wasn't surprised to hear Bill's, "Not a chance, Sarah."

He knew when it was time to let spouses fight their battle without outside help.

"It makes sense, Bill. I have some experience in getting someone through a panic attack."

From the displeased look on Bill's face, Lex suspected he knew who she had helped. However, it didn't affect his opinion of Bill in the slightest. A deputy who was obviously as good as he was who also battled panic attacks? Hell of a good man.

"But Sarah, we barely know what we are dealing with here."

"Which is why we need to gather information. Would your grandfather have gone into battle without good intelligence?"

Lex quietly did some typing. Bill's grandfather was apparently some World War II hero. Good blood in him, then.

"That's a low blow, Sarah, using him against me in an argument!"

Lex glanced up from his typing long enough to note the look of determination on her face. _Not going to win this one, Bill_ he thought to himself. He glanced over at Griff who very carefully did not have a smile on his face.

Lex carefully busied himself at his computer. By the time the staring contest finished, he had a bit more information about their Mr. Miller.

"All right," Bill said. "But I don't like it, and you're going to call me every day to let me know you're all right."

Lex thought Sarah played her victory quite well. All she did was nod.

Lex did a bit more typing. After a moment, he said, "Make that _two_ first class tickets to Washington."

"How are you paying for those?" Bill asked, suspicion in his tone.

Lex didn't even look up. "Black ops fund."

"You mean those really exist?" Griff asked.

"Of course," Lex replied.

"How do you know how to access them?" Bill asked.

"Who do you think set them up?" Lex said as he quietly booked a suite in the downtown Sheraton. He hoped Bill would be okay with that, but if Griff was still having nightmares, he didn't think it was a good idea for them to be in separate rooms.

"I thought you said this wasn't your universe," Bill said, in a tone that implied he'd finally caught Lex in an inconsistency.

Lex shrugged. "Whoever set them up here thought pretty much like me. It was easy enough to backtrack what they did."

"So what do we do when we get to D.C.?" Sarah asked, adding some practicality to the conversation.

"I've got information on where Mr. Miller worked. Looks like a typical Beltway Bandit with one twist."

"What's that?" Griff asked.

"They work on arming systems for nuclear weapons, among other things," Lex said, his voice low and concerned.

"You think that's what this is about?" Sarah asked.

"I'm not sure, but I think it's worth checking out. Griff, you up for a few interrogations?"

"Probably," came the answer. "What approach would you like me to take?"

Lex reached into his pack and took out his portable printer. "IRS? That usually takes people off their guard."

Griff gave a toothy grin. "That should be fun."

Bill had a sour look on his face that made it plain he didn't think this was even slightly fun.

However, Sarah moved to sit beside Lex. "Mind if I watch?"

"Not at all." He rather enjoyed having an audience. "Do you have a white wall we can use as a photo backdrop?"

"Our guest room?"

Lex created two driver's licenses, one in the name of Griff Krenshaw. He'd checked, and there were no FBI or IRS agents with that name. Then he started on one for Sarah. "May I borrow your driver's license?" he asked.

She handed it over, and he used the particulars to create a Virginia license for her. Then he did the same for two IRS field investigators badges. Sarah watched him, apparently fascinated.

Once he had everything except the photographs, he grabbed his phone. "Show me this wall."

She led him to the guest bedroom. The wall looked good enough. He could touch up the picture as needed. Terri had always preferred to use an actual backdrop, but she had taught him what to do if he needed to use a wall. He took both of their photos in casual clothes for the licenses.

"Do you have a professional suit for the IRS photo?" he asked Sarah.

She looked startled for a moment before answering, "I think I can pull something together."

"Good. Griff, I packed a suit for you in your backpack. It'll be a bit rumpled, but that won't be a problem. No one will notice wrinkles in an ID picture."

Griff nodded and went to the living room to get his pack. Sadie paced after him. Bill watched them go with a pleased look on his face. He changed in the guest room and was done and photographed by the time Sarah came back. Lex nodded his approval. She had a dark blazer, sensible navy skirt and a cream blouse accented with a colorful scarf. "That's perfect," he said as he photographed her. "Go ahead and pack that for the trip."

"Won't it look odd that I'm wearing exactly the same clothes as in the ID photo?"

"Do you have a different scarf and blouse?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Perfect. That'll work. People don't usually pay a lot of attention to ID photos. They are usually too nervous about the interview."

"You've done this before," Bill observed.

"I have. Many times. And the woman who trained me was top notch." He kept his tone flat, hoping no one would ask him for more details.

No one did. Lex and Bill went back to the living room while Sarah and Griff changed back into casual clothes.

By the time they returned to the living room, Lex was running the IDs through his portable laminator. He handed them over. "Careful. They are still warm."

Sarah looked at hers and smiled. "They look so real."

Lex nodded, busy typing. "As soon as I backstop them, they should stand up to just about any search." He looked at Bill. "Don't worry. No one will make them from the IDs."

Bill nodded, still not happy, but Lex sensed his professionalism was getting him some reluctant respect from the deputy.

Next, he went back to complete Sarah's airline reservation. He hadn't had a middle name earlier, but he had guessed correctly that she'd taken Bill's name. Although he had misspelled Koehler and corrected that. Then he created two credit cards for Sarah and Griff, each tied to their new IDs and funded from the same black ops fund he'd used for the airline tickets. He used card blanks he'd brought with him and used another small device he carried to add their names to the blanks.

He handed them over. "These are the same cards used on the hotel and plane reservations. Just use them as you normally would. Don't worry about the credit limit. It's effectively unlimited."

"I don't know," Griff said. "I might have expensive tastes."

Lex laughed. "Well, then, you might want to show a tiny bit of restraint."

Lex wasn't surprised when Bill came up with one more objection. "None of this is legal!"

"You're right," he said, his tone agreeable. "Assuming we are right about the broad outlines of what that demon is up to, his associates aren't using legal means either. If the good guys knew about it, this would probably be a joint CIA/FBI operation, and they'd be doing basically the same things, the same way. This is what I was trained to do."

"How do you know our government doesn't know about this?"

"I don't yet. That's one of the things I'm going to check tonight. By the time you three wake up, I'm going to have as much information as I can amass. I don't intend to send either Griff or Sarah into this without some background."

Sarah gave Bill an admonishing look before turning to Lex. "Then you'll need lots of coffee," she said.

He gave her a smile. "That I will. Although if you have any Earl Grey or another black tea, I'll take that too. I like to trade off when I'm working."

"When will you sleep?" Griff asked.

"When you guys leave in the morning for Kansas City. I'll grab a few hours and then do more research while you're in the air.”

Sarah nodded. "I'll get you your coffee and tea, Lex."

***

Several hours later, Lex was still bent over his keyboard. As far as Bill could tell, the hacker was barely aware of his surroundings. Occasionally, he spoke to himself, low and under his breath. Bill couldn't make out exactly what he was saying, but he suspected the man was talking through what he was doing.

He recognized the signs of someone who knew exactly what he was about, and Bill left the man to his work.

Griff sat in his chair, Sadie curled at his feet, nose buried in an economics book he'd plucked off of the shelf. It was one of Sarah's, Bill having no interest in such academic subjects. He'd done well enough in school, but he had no interest in continuing his studies. His life as a deputy, keeping the peace and coming home to Sarah, was enough for him.

A pleasant life which had just been completely disrupted.

He didn't want to trust the two men who looked so much like him. However, the grace softly pulsing within him seemed to insist that he could trust them. That he could trust them as much as he trusted Sarah and Jimmy, the two people he loved most in the world.

He hated everything that had happened that afternoon and evening. He hated even more that Sarah was leaving in the morning, flying far away from him, to someplace Bill had never been. Worse, flying away without him.

He eyed Griff again. He needed to know more. The reassuring message of the grace wasn't enough. Sarah was in the bedroom, presumably packing for the journey. Lex was still buried in his computer.

Bill stood up. Instantly, Griff looked up from his book. Seeming to understand what the deputy wanted, he stood up as well. Griff also glanced over at Lex, smiled and then started for the door, Sadie following, tail wagging.

Surprised, Bill hurried to catch up, stopping only to get his dog's leash.

As soon as they were outside, Griff started walking, setting a steady pace for the sidewalk. Bill followed, keeping Sadie moving when she wanted to sniff. As soon as they were several hundred feet from the house, Griff said, "Go ahead and ask your questions."

"What?" was all Bill managed to say.

"That's what you wanted, right? You wanted to know why I'm not FBI anymore."

Well, yes, that was exactly what Bill had wanted to ask, but how had Griff known? "You can't…read minds or anything, can you?"

Griff barked out a harsh laugh. "No. But if you were about to take my wife off on a plane ride far away from here, I'd want to know more about the man who was going to do that. I've been waiting for you to ask ever since you agreed to this insane plan."

"So you agree it's insane?"

Griff smiled, the expression almost feral. "Sure. But then insanity's been so much a part of my life lately that it's basically my normal state."

"So what did happen? And what is wrong with you?" Bill was glad Sarah wasn't here. She would have been giving him dirty looks for being so direct.

"Way to not pull any punches," Griff said, but Bill sensed respect from him. "All right. Here's the short version. Lex can give you my file—I think he has it on that laptop of his—if you want the long version. In my universe, there's a gene for violent criminal behavior." He looked at Bill, who was keeping pace on Griff's right side. "Do you have that here?"

Bill shook his head. He'd never heard of such a thing, and he kept up on law enforcement journals, the one subject he continued to study, and he was certain if there were a gene, he'd have heard about it.

Griff nodded. "Lex says they don’t have it in his either." He shrugged. "Guess mine just has to be the odd one out."

"Do you have it?" Bill asked, suddenly concerned.

"Lex says no. The woman supposedly studying me said yes. Gabriel said no, that I have some sort of mutation in the genes that make us vessels. So, make of that what you will. However, my brother definitely had it, and he killed my parents and then himself. I went into a depressive spiral after that. Long story short, I had one last chance, a case to determine if the guy studying the gene in convicts had been murdered or committed suicide. I fucked up. Was hallucinating my brother pretty much all the time. Got to where I couldn't tell reality from my hallucinations and killed a guy."

Bill knew he should have been horrified, but the gentle pulse of grace within him seemed to be saying, _Don't worry. That's not who he really is._ Oddly, his own instincts were telling him the same thing.

"They institutionalized me. That's where Lex found me and broke me out of. He says they weren't actually treating me. They'd just locked me up to get me out of the way. I think Dana, the women studying me, was trying to figure out what I really have." He shuddered. "She was evil. Lex did a good thing getting me out of her hands. Whatever she might have discovered wouldn't have been used to good ends. I'm sure of that."

"So this grace is healing you? Now you can tell reality from fantasy?" Bill asked.

Another harsh bark of laughter. "Now, that's a really good question. When the driver's eyes turned black, while Lex and I were still in the car with him, I was convinced Gabriel was wrong. That I wasn't getting better. Then he turned out to actually be a demon." Griff shrugged. "You tell me."

Bill thought about it for a moment. "Have you seen your brother since you've been over here?"

"No."

Bill shrugged, listening to both grace and instincts. He also considered that his dog liked him and had from the first moment she had seen him. She was sniffing around, however, every few seconds she checked to see where Griff was. Not like she was suspicious of him, but like she wanted to make sure he was present and okay. "Then I'm thinking you're getting better."

"Better enough to take your wife to D.C.?"

Bill had to think longer about that one. He wasn't entirely convinced that he was in this danger that Gabriel seemed to think he was. However, he couldn't deny that the demon had existed. Maybe Lex would find something to prove it one way or another.

And with that thought, he realized that he did trust the two of them. He trusted Lex to find what needed to be found. And he guessed he trusted Griff to do what needed to be done in D.C. And to keep Sarah as safe as he could.

"I think so, yes," Bill said slowly, still a bit surprised to find he really did think that.

"I'll do whatever it takes to keep her safe," Griff said. "It'll be no loss if I don't come back. But her, well, she deserves to come back to you, and you deserve to have her back. If I can make that happen, I will."

Bill found himself putting an arm around Griff, just like he might have around Jimmy. "Nah, man. I want both of you back, you hear?"

Griff stiffened under his arm for a moment and then relaxed. "Didn't expect that."

"Doesn't make it any less true, does it?"

Griff paused for a moment before saying, "No, I guess it doesn't."

Was that approval he was feeling from the grace within him? Had he just increased the odds that Sarah _and_ Griff would make it back. He thought maybe he had.

"Let's get back." The sun had just dipped below the horizon, and Bill wanted a little bit of time with his wife before he sent her off.

They went back to the house, Sadie leading the way. Lex glanced up as they walked in. "I've got a few things, but I'll have more by morning. Why don't you turn in, Griff? You still look tired."

Griff nodded. "I think I will." Sarah walked into the living room just then, and he asked, "Someplace I can sleep, ma'am?"

Sarah mock-frowned at him. "What have I said about calling me ma'am?"

Griff grinned at her. "Not to do it, ma'am."

They all had a laugh at that before Sarah showed Griff to the guest room and made sure Lex had all the caffeine he needed. She also set out a plate of cookies for him. "You're sure you want to stay up all night? Don’t you need your sleep?"

Lex shook his head and absently took a cookie off the plate. "No, I want to keep looking. I think I'm getting close to finding an actual demon sighting. Hopefully, that will tell us something."

"All right, then. But there's extra blankets in the hall closet if you change your mind. Bill sleeps on the couch often enough, so you should be fine."

"I don't sleep on it that often!" Bill protested, although he knew it was true. When he got in from a late patrol, he hated to wake Sarah, so he usually crashed on the couch.

"'Often enough,' I said," Sarah said, with a warm smile for her husband.

Lex waved them off with one hand, holding his cookie in the other, still staring at the screen. "I'll be fine. See you in the morning."

Bill took Sarah's hand and led her to the bedroom. He didn't have much time with her, and he didn't want to waste any of it.

"I'm sorry," she said, as soon as he had closed the door behind them.

"For what, babe?" he asked, pulling her in for a hug.

"For not being a better wife. For not agreeing to stay behind."

He kissed the top of her head. "That's not being a bad wife. Quite the opposite. Oh, I don't want you to go. No question about that. But when we talked this all through earlier, Griff made a good point when he said that we don't know if this thing is just focused on me or is part of a wider plot. If it is just me, then it would be a bad idea to change my routine." He hated the idea of going to work in the morning, just as if nothing had happened and Sarah was just off on a short trip to visit family. Lex had suggested she use a distant family illness as her excuse to be gone for a few days.

She settled closer into his chest. "I didn't expect you to see that so soon is all, I guess."

He huffed a laugh into her hair. "I'm not that unreasonable, babe."

"No. Just a tad protective."

"And you know you love it."

Her hands stole under his t-shirt, and he smiled. Yes, that was what he had hoped for this evening.

It was well after midnight before they got any sleep, but that was okay. Bill wanted his wife back, but, just in case the worst happened, he wanted to send her off knowing she was well loved.


	9. Chapter 9

Lex was tired in the morning, but he was satisfied. He didn't have as much as he'd hoped for, but he had enough to get everyone started.

Bill and Sarah were up first, and Sarah busied herself with making breakfast for all of them. Lex had switched to water a few hours ago and politely refused when she'd offered him more coffee.

He went in to awaken Griff, wanting to get the briefing completed before Bill had to leave for his shift. Sadie raised her head from where she had been sleeping, curled up next to Griff. The other man woke up reluctantly, hair sticking up in every direction. Absently, he reached out to pet the dog. "Really?" he asked.

"Yes, really," Lex said. "What are you complaining about? You slept all night."

"You’re the one who made the decision to stay up all night. Don't make it sound like you're the virtuous one here."

Lex smiled. It had been years since he'd had someone to banter with. "True, but I want to let you all know what I found before Bill has to leave. I want input from both of you before you and Sarah leave."

Griff grumbled but slowly climbed out of bed and shuffled into the living room, where Sarah had placed a fresh pot of coffee. Griff poured himself a mug and downed it almost as quickly as Lex would have.

Bill watched the performance and shook his head. "Apparently I didn't get the immunity to burned tongues that you two seem to have."

Lex sat back down at his computer. He was tired enough that he was shaky, and he preferred to sit down rather than fall down. "I don't think it's a vessel thing, at least not for me. I've just been gulping down hot coffee and tea for so many years, I think that's how I developed the immunity."

Griff refilled his mug. "I don't have any immunity. I just didn't feel like showing weakness in front of the two of you."

Lex and Bill both laughed, and Sarah came in with pancakes. "What did I miss?" she asked.

"Nothing, babe," Bill answered. "Just an excess of testosterone."

"With the three of you in here, why doesn't that surprise me?" she said as she put down the heaping plate.

Everyone helped themselves, and Lex waited until they had eaten before saying, "So I found a few things out last night."

Bill glanced at his watch. "Better make it quick. I have to leave in half an hour."

"I think I can get through it by then." He took a sip of water, wishing it were tea but knowing he needed to clear some of the caffeine from his system so he could sleep after everyone left. "I didn't make as much progress as I'd hoped for on demon sightings. I'll do more sifting on that later today. However, I found out some interesting information on our Mr. Miller. Namely that I don't think he's always been a demon."

"How can you tell that?" Griff asked.

"Because his financial habits changed dramatically about two years ago. Before that, his salary and spending matched. He's unmarried and wasn't big into saving, but he lived within his means, and his tax returns were unremarkable. However, about two years ago, all that changed." He paused for another drink.

"Changed how?" Bill asked, expressing professional interest.

"His apparent salary didn't change, and everything looked normal in his regular savings and checking accounts. That's important because he did have a security clearance, which incidentally was renewed about—"

"Two years ago," Griff finished for him.

"Right in one. Just after the renewal, he opened an offshore account, which right now has just shy of two million dollars in it."

"How much is in his regular accounts?" Bill asked.

"All told? Just under $10K. Everything in those accounts matches his salary."

"So if anyone did a surface check, it would look like nothing had changed," Griff said.

"Exactly. Once he'd passed the security checks, no one would do the level of forensic accounting that I'm doing until he came up for renewal again. Assuming they found the accounts, which, depending on who was doing the checking, they might not. Mr. Miller covered his tracks well."

"But not well enough for you," Sarah said, sounding pleased.

"Nope, but this is what I do on a daily basis, so—" He shrugged.

"Any idea where the two million came from?" Griff asked.

"Not yet. That's another trace I'll do later today. I was most concerned with getting you something to work with when you go interview his co-workers and superiors."

"So you want me to mention the offshore account?" Griff asked.

"Absolutely. When you land, go buy a tablet and call me. I've uploaded everything to an encrypted file locker. I'll give you access, and you'll have everything you need to start asking questions. How good is your BS detector?"

Griff grinned. "Excellent."

Lex nodded. "Good. Don't worry about getting anyone to crack. I doubt you'll be that lucky, and you don't want to draw the wrong attention. All I need is you to pick up on anyone suspicious. If you give me names, I can run the same checks on them that I did on Miller. By the way, I've completely backstopped you and Sarah. Any calls to check on you will be routed to this phone." Lex tapped the cell phone on the table beside him. "And I've added your IDs and background into the IRS database. I've also added a case number and some particulars on what you're investigating. All that will be in the file locker. You showing up with a tablet shouldn’t cause any alarm, so feel free to refer to it while you're interviewing people."

Griff nodded, and Lex could see he was already formulating his strategy. He was satisfied the ex-FBI agent knew his job. Their mission should go smoothly as long as Griff didn't flashback to anything. Hopefully Sarah would be able to pull him back if that did happen.

"Anything else?" Bill asked with a pointed glance at his watch.

"One more thing, yes." Lex lifted the keycard they had gotten from Miller's wallet. "Most people think a key is useless if you don’t know what it unlocks. Unfortunately, most keys have all the information you need to track down their lock, assuming you know how to backtrack."

He paused, and Sarah asked the expected question. "And you do?"

Lex smiled. He did enjoy an audience. "Of course. Now, I assumed that it unlocked his office or some other door in the D.C. Metro area, but I was wrong."

"You were?" Bill asked with a frown. "Then what does it open?"

"Would you believe it opens a door right here in Jericho?" Lex asked

"It does?" Sarah asked at the same time both Bill and Griff asked, "Where?"

Lex consulted his computer, although he didn't need to. He had the address memorized. "1621 W. 4th Street."

Griff looked to Bill, who hadn't lost his frown, though now it was one of concentration instead of confusion. "That's an old warehouse. I think it used to belong to Gray, but he sold it a couple of years back."

"Couple as in two?" Lex asked.

"I think so," Bill said. His eyes widened as he made the connection. "Roughly the same time as Miller opened the offshore account?"

"Sounds like it." Lex gave the deputy a conspiratorial grin. "Feel like indulging in a little bit of B&E later tonight?"

Again, curiosity warred with Bill's sense of legal right and wrong. And again, curiosity won. "I think that might be a good idea."

"Starting to believe there's really something going on here, babe?" Sarah asked.

Bill nodded, slow and thoughtful. "I hate to say it, but yes. The more Lex here discovers, the more it sounds suspicious."

"And like Jericho is right in the middle of it," Griff added.

"That too," Bill agreed. He looked at his watch again. "I need to get going, but I'm off mid-afternoon, assuming nothing weird happens. I'll come back here. We can plan our approach over dinner."

"Sounds like a plan," Lex said before a huge yawn overcame him. "Sorry. I think it's about time I turned in."

"What time is it?" Griff asked. "How long until we need to leave for the airport?"

"If we're going to have enough fudge factor, we'd better get going soon," Sarah said. "We should miss traffic, but better to plan for the worst."

Bill stood up and hugged his wife. Lex and Griff both turned away to give them a bit of privacy. Then the deputy left with a final, "Call me when you've landed, babe."

She smiled at him, and Lex powered down his computer. "Time for me to turn in."

Griff got up and said he was going to take a quick shower.

Lex turned to Sarah. "Take care of him. Something tells me he's going to need you before you get back."

"I will."

"Must be weird for you, having the three of us here."

She gave him a wry grin. "It is. But I've gotten used to it pretty quickly."

Lex laughed. "You mean having three of your type in your house isn't exactly a trial for you?"

Sarah mock swatted at him, and he dodged it, still laughing. "Get to bed, you. You're clearly tired and punchy." She was smiling, though as she said it.

"Yes, ma'am," Lex said and dodged another swat as he headed for the guest bedroom. Too tired to get undressed, he collapsed on the bed and was gone within seconds. He never even heard Sarah and Griff leave for the airport.


	10. Chapter 10

Griff and Sarah made it to Kansas City and boarded their plane with no complications. Griff could tell Sarah was nervous about their false IDs, but he'd seen enough of Lex's work to trust in it, and he'd reassured her. The last thing they wanted was for a TSA scanner to pick up on her nerves and pay more attention to their paperwork.

Sarah had obviously never travelled first class before, and Griff enjoyed watching her check out the roomy seat and her surprise at receiving drink service before the plane had even taken off. All the seats in the section were taken, so they needed to be careful about their conversation, but he thought they could talk, at least a little.

Interestingly, Sarah was the one who initiated the conversation. "How do we approach these interviews?"

He'd expected different questions, but then he realized Bill must have talked to her last night and filled her in on his situation. With a mental shrug, he decided to go with it. "The two people we want to start with are his boss and his administrative assistant, if he has one. If he doesn't have one, then we ask about his direct reports. We wouldn't necessarily know everyone he works with, so it won't cause any alarm if we ask questions to hone in on who he knows."

"And we're looking for people who seem evasive? Lex said we didn't need anyone to confess. We were just looking for people who seem like they need further investigation?"

"Exactly."

The stewardess came back by and offered them snacks and more drinks. Griff and Sarah both accepted, although both of them asked for soft drinks.

"You don't drink?" Griff asked.

"Not really," she said. "Alcohol doesn't mix with my meds."

Griff raised a questioning eyebrow. "Anything I need to be concerned about?"

She shook her head. "Probably not. I have bipolar II, which is sort of a muted version of the bipolar you've probably heard about."

He nodded. "I know about it. I've been in therapy for a number of years, and bipolar II was one of the diagnoses they looked at for me."

"But it wasn't?" she asked.

"No, unipolar depression and possibly schizophrenia. They hadn't settled on the latter diagnosis before my boss sent me on that final case. If the diagnosis had been firm, I probably would have been pulled from active case work and eased out of the agency."

"Which might have been better? You might not have had the breakdown on that case. Yes, Bill filled me in."

"I thought he probably had." Griff shrugged. "As for being better, I don't know." He touched his chest, where the grace sat, warm and comforting. "I might be better off here. Maybe I have a chance to get healed."

She placed a gentle hand on his arm. "So what should I be watching for? Since that's why I'm here."

"You're not just here for that," he assured her. "I saw how you handled yourself yesterday. I'm thinking you'll be good to have around. When interviewing, it's good to have one person asking the questions while the other takes notes. That way, I can watch for subtle clues I might miss if I'm taking notes."

"So I'm your secretary?" she asked, with a smile to make it apparent she hadn't taken offense at the role assignment.

"Well, I am the one trained in interrogation techniques. Unless you have skills you haven't told me about?"

"Nope," she said. "I'm just a librarian."

He smiled. "Who can shoot and apparently memorizes exorcism rituals in her spare time." Griff knew he was flirting a bit with her, but he hoped she didn't think he meant anything by it. He was enjoying contact with someone who wasn't trying to study him.

She smiled back. "Well, yes, those too. And don't think I didn't notice you dodging my earlier question."

He sighed and took a swallow of his drink to buy himself a moment or two. He really didn't want to think too much about all the ways he could mess this up, but she did deserve an explanation. "All right," he finally said. "Obviously if I start to hallucinate, that's a bad thing."

She nodded. "Just try to remember to tell me what you’re seeing. Since we know demons do exist—" She lowered her voice as she said that. "—just seeing something weird doesn't automatically mean you're hallucinating."

"Yeah, I'll do my best. You said you know how to calm someone down from a panic attack?"

"Yes. Bill gets them sometimes."

"Okay, then do what you'd do for him."

"Get you to a quiet place and coach you into getting control of your breathing?"

He nodded. "That should work. If it should happen while we're interviewing, which it shouldn't, but—" He shrugged. "I'm not entirely sure what to expect anymore, so we'll just go with the panic attack explanation."

Griff hated the not knowing what exactly was wrong with him. Or if there still was something wrong. He'd slept without nightmares last night, which he supposed was a good sign. Maybe this grace stuff was working.

"I noticed that Lex set us up with a suite instead of separate rooms," she said.

"I get nightmares. I'm guessing that's why."

"That's what Bill and I thought too."

He tilted his head and asked, "You two okay with that? We can change it, if you'd like."

She shook her head. "Shouldn't be a problem." Sarah gave him a sharp look. "As long as you don't try anything."

He put his hands up in mock surrender. "I've always had a policy of not messing with other men's wives."

She gave him a smile. "Then we'll be good." Then she added, "Anything I should know about the nightmares?"

"I don't get violent when awakened, if that's what you meant. It's okay to shake me awake. Don't be surprised if you find me on the floor, though. They used to strap me to the bed at night so I didn't end up in a corner."

She raised an eyebrow at that. "They strapped you down? That doesn't sound like very good treatment."

"Lex thinks they weren't actually treating me, so I guess they were going for expediency."

"Then I'm glad you're out of there."

"Me too." If only he could trust himself, but it had been too long since he'd been able to do that.

Sarah seemed to sense the conversation needed to shift. "So you're leading the interviews, and I'm taking notes. Anything in particular you want me to listen for?"

"Names and dates, mostly. I'm going to ask about other people we should be talking to. I'll also ask about trips out of town or out of the country. Has he been seen with different people in the last couple of years? Any changes in spending habits or his attitude toward his job? Some of those aren't pertinent to our investigation, but they'd be the sorts of questions some of the people we’re interviewing will be expecting. The longer they think we are actually IRS agents, the better."

"So you think our cover won't hold up?"

He shrugged. "It should. It depends on how suspicious are some of the people we meet." Then he added, "Oh, and if I tell you to run, get out of there as quickly as possible. Wherever we are, be alert for exits and try to make a mental map of where we are and how to get away. Again, I hope we won't need it, but it's better to be prepared."

"And what will you be doing while I'm running?" she asked, her voice hard with suspicion.

"Buying you time to get away," he said. "One of us will need to get the information back to Lex, and you're the one taking the notes."

The hard look she gave him told him that she knew or suspected that was only one reason. But he held her gaze without flinching. Yes, Bill had told him that he wanted both of them back, but Griff knew that given a choice between himself and his wife, Bill would choose his wife every time. As well he should.

She didn't exactly back down, but she did say, "That's a last resort. I'm intending that both of us get back to Jericho. Gabriel sent both of you for a reason, and I don't think the reason was you getting killed or locked up in D.C."

"Yes, ma'am," was all he could say to that.

The rest of the flight was quiet, but it wasn't an uncomfortable silence. They both knew what they needed to do.

***

Lex slept for about six hours, which wasn't nearly enough, but he knew he'd be functional for a while. He hoped he could get close to a night's sleep after investigating the warehouse with Bill after dark.

After making a pot of coffee, he checked his phone. There were two texts. The first was letting him know Griff and Sarah had landed in D.C. about an hour earlier. The second was from a different device, probably a cellular-equipped iPad, asking for access to the encrypted locker.

Lex sent the link and let them know it would only work on the iPad he'd sent it to. That was more secure than sending a username and password over what was essentially an open line. Probably no one was looking, but why take chances?

Someone, probably Griff from the wording, thanked him and said they were on their way to the hotel where they'd look over everything in the locker. Lex wished them luck.

He took a moment to contemplate the fact that Gabriel's sense of his vessels and their danger apparently ignored time. The universe Lex had left behind was in the year 2018. He'd not paid attention during his time in Griff's universe, but once he'd arrived in Jericho, he'd noted the date on Griff's file put his universe in early 2016. While Bill and Sarah's was in 2015.

He eyed the state of the art iPhone X he had beside him and was grateful that Apple hadn't done anything too crazy with the exterior design of the phone. If someone got a close look at it, they would certainly recognize something odd about it, but from a distance, it just looked like the high-end smartphone it was. The operating system was three builds ahead of what was available here, but that didn't seem to be causing any issues. It connected just fine to the cellular networks, and everything appeared to be working. There might be a few apps that would act oddly, but he hoped not to be here long enough for that to cause any problems.

He shook himself, drank some coffee and switched his attention to today's tasks. Sadie wandered by, apparently found him as uninteresting as she had found Griff interesting, and curled up on the couch and went to sleep. He wondered briefly if she was allowed on furniture, but he wasn't inclined to fight her for it. He only had a few hours before Bill's shift would end, and Lex needed to make progress before the deputy got back home.

First, he wanted to track the two million in Miller's account. It took him longer than he'd expected. Someone had covered their tracks well. However, he'd done harder hacks, and he finally discovered the money traced back to a holding company which shared two shareholders with the Beltway Bandit that Miller worked for. That was enough of a link for Lex. There were two other shareholders on the holding company, and he was able to trace them to another defense contractor. He wasn't entirely surprised to learn the second contractor also worked on nuclear weapons systems. He didn't like the picture which was starting to emerge.

He checked the time. Just over an hour until Bill's shift was over. That money trace had taken much longer than he'd allotted for. He still wanted to track down the elusive demon sighting.

He'd spent much of the last night wandering through a succession of online forums, Twitter accounts, and even a few LiveJournal accounts, which were slightly more alive in 2015 than they were in his own 2018. As expected, most of the supposed sightings were a mix of hoaxes, wishful thinking, fanfiction, and hysteria. However, he had run across one user on several of the forums. They used the same username on all of them, Soulwindow. Lex had been able to track down the real name of the user, not that it has been difficult. Julian Richards was a writer of urban fantasy novels. Lex had purchased one out of curiosity, skimmed through it and decided the guy was not a bad writer.

He also had excellent research skills, and Lex had followed his tracks through the various sites. Richards had obviously eliminated the hoaxes and the like and had been on the trail of what Lex agreed might be a real sighting.

Richards had lost the trail at one forum, but Lex thought he saw a path Richards had missed. There was another user, DemonBlood, who, despite his fanciful name, did seem to know what they were about on the forums. Lex followed DemonBlood through a few more links and finally, he thought he'd found what he was looking for.

According to the entry on a forum dedicated to sightings of aliens and other odd phenomena, there had been a sighting in Cheyenne of a man whose eyes turned black. There was nothing else to the report, which was one of the reasons Lex believed it. Other reports of demon sightings had been accompanied by hysteria, "mysterious" chants and ritual paraphernalia. That made no sense. These demons, if that was in fact what they were, had so far gone to great lengths to stay out of sight. Why then, would they blow their cover in such cliched fashion?

The other reason Lex believed the report was that the third board member of the holding company was based in Cheyenne.

Two data points didn't guarantee it was true, but Lex had investigated on less evidence in the past. Once Griff was back from D.C., he wanted the two of them to take a trip to Cheyenne. At least it was a short enough trip that they could drive instead of fly.

With any luck, the warehouse investigation would yield yet another clue to follow.

The front door opened, and Lex whirled in alarm. It was Bill. The deputy's expression grew concerned. "Something happen?" he asked.

"No," Lex said, feeling embarrassed. "I've just spent the better part of an hour sifting through reports of demons, extraterrestrials and, I think, Mothmen from the center of the Earth."

Bill frowned. "Why would Mothmen be in the center of the Earth? Shouldn't they be…I don't know…flying or something?"

Lex shrugged. "Got me. What I have learned this afternoon is that P.T. Barnum was only half-right."

Bill tilted his head as he closed the door behind him and took off his utility belt. "How so?"

"There's a sucker born at least every  _ half _ minute."

The deputy chuckled. He looked over at the couch, apparently saw the dog, who was still sleeping and said, "You know you're not allowed there."

Sadie opened her eyes and slowly, with attitude, got off the couch and went into the kitchen where Lex heard the sound of drinking.

"Sarah called you, I presume?" Lex asked.

"Yes. Right after they landed. She said they texted you as well."

"They did. I was just making sure they'd remembered to call you. I don't have your cell number, or I would have texted you."

Bill handed over his phone. "Enter your number in here and then text yourself. We should have each other's numbers."

"True." He took Bill's phone, and his stomach chose that moment to growl, loudly. The deputy grinned. "Forgot to eat, didn't you?"

Lex spoke as he entered his number. "Yeah. I slept longer than I'd intended, and I had a couple of leads I still wanted to follow up on before you got home." He handed back Bill's phone.

"Find anything?"

"I think so."

"Great. Let me get changed, and we can go grab some dinner. I don't feel like cooking, if that's okay with you?"

Lex nodded. "Fine by me. But I'm paying."

"Damn straight. You're the one with the black ops credit card. As long as we discuss business, it counts as a legit expense, right?"

Lex laughed. "Bill, I'm going to corrupt you yet."

Bill shrugged on his way to the bedroom. "It's what you big government guys do, ain't it?'

"Pretty much, yeah."


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now with new art by [Gabriel_Is_My_Guardian_Angel89](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabriel_Is_My_Guardian_Angel89)

Bill definitely wasn't happy about what they were about to do, but he did see the point. Something was clearly going on. Lex had uncovered enough to convince Bill of the need for further investigation. He just wished it didn’t involve breaking and entering. He was supposed to stop people from doing that, not engage in it himself.

He dressed sensibly, in dark clothes but nothing that would stand out if a Jericho resident saw him.

Lex had walked through his plan during dinner at Bailey's. Bill had introduced the hacker to the local establishment, and he had been quite appreciative of the good, uncomplicated fare. Bill had been pleased at the simplicity of the plan. Wait until about 2 in the morning, a quiet time after Bailey's had closed for the night and hardly anyone was moving in the town. Lex would scout ahead, and when he was sure it was clear, he'd motion Bill to approach. They would unlock the warehouse, see what was inside, take pictures—Lex assured Bill that his phone camera would take acceptable pictures, even in the dark—and get out before anyone was the wiser.

With some reluctance, Bill had spelled out the nighttime patrol schedule so they could avoid being seen by any of Bill's fellow deputies. Lex had been sensitive to Bill's concerns but had also been firm that they needed the information.

After all that, he wasn't sure which he preferred: finding something or coming up empty? Finding something meant breaking the law hadn't been in vain, but a large part of Bill hoped this Gabriel was wrong. Did he even believe in archangels? I mean, sure he was a Christian and all, and he supposed he believed in the idea of angels. But actual angels? Who smote demons and interfered in the lives of humanity? Then again, if demons existed, and he knew now that they did, didn't angels make sense? He decided to table his existential crisis until he could talk it through with Sarah. She'd have a good perspective on it.

He had napped for a few hours after dinner. His sleep was going to be disrupted enough, and he still had his shift in the morning. Lex, however, had hunched over his computer, waving Bill off with a casual, "I'll sleep after we get back. I want to make sure I'm not missing anything Griff and Sarah might need."

All things considered, Bill couldn't argue with that.

Bill set an alarm and was up and ready to go by a few minutes before 2. Lex was still at his computer, but he looked to be finishing up, if closing down several open programs was any indication.

"You ready?" Lex asked, standing up and closing the lid on his laptop.

"As much as I'm going to be, considering what we're about to do."

Lex laughed. "You know, we do have the key. It's not like we're going to be doing the 'breaking' part of breaking and entering."

"We're still entering unlawfully," Bill said stubbornly.

Lex packed his backpack, mostly with stuff Bill couldn’t identify. He was curious about that cell phone, though. He was no expert, but somehow it looked more advanced than the smartphones all the kids were getting. He still thought flip phones were plenty good enough for him. "Bill, I assure you that I have done far worse in the name of the United States government."

"But we're not doing this in their name."

Lex shrugged and shouldered his backpack. "Still needs to be done." He glanced around the living room, which he had basically taken over, apparently didn't see anything he was missing and started for the door.

"You have the key?" Bill asked as he followed.

"Yes, Dad," Lex said, good humor in his tone.

"I think you're older than me," Bill noted.

"You're still acting like my dad." He paused and then added, "Or maybe more like my old boss."

Bill couldn't miss the wistfulness in his voice and knew there was a story there. Maybe he'd ask later.

Bill led them to his SUV, and started for 4th Street. While one of the larger streets in town, this far out, the buildings were some distance apart. He drove just past their target and pulled into the parking lot of a deserted building that used to be a pizza place. Bill remembered eating there as a kid after ball practice in the field across the street.

He drove behind the building, parked and turned off the truck. Lex was fiddling with his phone, and a moment later said, "I don't think anyone's around. At least no one with a cell phone, and since that's pretty much everyone, even in a town like this, I think it's safe to say we're good."

"You can tell that from your phone?" Bill asked, impressed.

"Sure," Lex answered. "Wrote the app myself."

Of course he had.

Bill and Lex got out of the truck. "I'll check it out," Lex said. "If it's clear, I'll come back for you, and we can go in together."

Bill nodded. "I'll keep watch for anyone coming and text you if it looks like trouble.”

"Deal," Lex said before moving off. Bill noted that he moved confidently and with assurance. For someone who said he wasn't much of a field operative, he looked good.

Bill crouched down at one corner of the old pizza place and let his gaze travel back and forth along 4th Street. One truck rumbled by. He recognized it as belonging to a farmer who lived not too far from Stanley. The man's name escaped him. The truck didn't even slow down as it passed by.

It wasn't long before Lex came back, striding across the street like he had every reason to be there in the wee hours of the morning. Bill had to reluctantly admit that he probably would have ignored him if he'd driven by in his patrol car. If Lex had done anything to attempt to conceal himself, it would have piqued his interest, but by looking like he belonged, he didn't draw attention to himself, even though he was in plain sight.

"All clear," he said as he approached. "I think I'm going to have to break into the building. It looks like the keycard opens something inside, not outside."

"I take it you know how to do that?" Bill asked.

Bill could just make out Lex's cocky grin in the reflected light from the street. "Of course."

Bill followed Lex across the street, and the hacker led them confidently to a side door to the warehouse. Lex pulled some tools from his backpack and had the lock picked in less than 5 minutes. Bill was impressed. He knew that lock manufacturer, and it was a good one.

"You always carry lockpicks with you?" he asked.

Lex was packing them away. "Of course. Every time I cross into an alternate universe."

"Very funny," Bill said. He reached for the door, but Lex stopped him.

"Hang on," he said. "There's an alarm."

Bill froze before dropping his hand back to his side. Lex pulled out his phone, swiped and tapped for a few minutes and then said, "Okay. We're good now." He reached out and opened the door.

Nothing happened, which Bill took as a good sign. Lex did something to his phone, and it lit up like a flashlight. Okay, maybe smartphones were handy.

Lex led the way, and Bill followed. He took out his own flashlight and played the beam around. They were in what looked like a large garage. It was empty, but he could see spilled oil stains, indicating there had been vehicles here at one time. They walked slowly, both using their lights to search for either what they were looking for or something dangerous.

They crossed the garage, and Lex stopped. "There's a door. That looks like a keycard reader beside it."

Bill shone his flashlight in the direction Lex was looking and saw what he had indicated.

They approached, and Lex turned his phone over, again tapping and swiping. Bill assumed he was looking for more security.

Finally, the hacker said, "I think the keycard disarms everything."

"You think?" Bill asked, not feeling reassured.

"This isn't always as clear-cut as in the movies."

"If we were in a movie, and this were a dramatic enough moment, lights and alarms would start going off about now."

"Then let's hope we're not in a movie," Lex said as he pulled out the keycard and swiped it over the reader.

The door clicked. Nothing else happened.

Bill hadn't realized he had been holding his breath.

Lex shrugged. "We've come this far." He reached out and opened the door and shone his light to reveal what was inside.

Bill couldn't stop his gasp at what the light revealed: shelf upon shelf of guns, what looked like HAZMAT suits, and what he thought were Geiger counters. He'd inventoried the ones in the station just last month, so he was familiar with them.

"What the hell?" he asked.

Lex kept sweeping his light back and forth. "I think this tells us what they are up to."

"There's enough guns in there to equip a small army."

"And those HAZMAT suits are intended for radiation. Looks to me like someone might be planning to start a war and is planning for or intending to use nuclear bombs."

"Who would do that?" Bill asked. He was stunned. This was the sort of thing that happened in the movies and TV. It didn't happen to people like him.

"Not sure yet," Lex said, as he moved into the room and started snapping pictures. "Looks like there are serial numbers or lot numbers or something like that on the suits." He snapped a picture of the Geiger Counter. "And on here."

"Get a few serial numbers off the guns," Bill suggested, his brain starting to work again. "I can track those down, maybe."

"On it," Lex said.

It took only a few more minutes, and they left, letting the door lock behind them.

"Do you suppose they can tell we were there?" Bill asked as he started his truck.

Lex was swiping through the pictures he'd taken. "I don't think so. It doesn't look like the building sees much traffic, and there wasn't anything in the security system that was going to broadcast. I'm guessing the demon was here to keep an eye on things."

"Do you suppose he had friends?" Bill asked.

"That's what Griff and Sarah are looking for."

Bill didn't like the sound of that. The stakes had just gone up, and his wife was in another state, accompanied only by a man who admitted he was basically crazy.

How had this become his life again?


	12. Chapter 12

Griff awoke with a muffled scream. At least he hoped it had been muffled. He didn’t want to awaken Sarah in the other bedroom.

He collapsed back onto his pillow, drenched with sweat, heart racing. Apparently Gabriel's grace could only do so much for him.

"Griff? Are you okay?" came Sarah's voice from his doorway. So much for not waking her up.

He sat up, grateful he had decided to sleep in shorts and a t-shirt. It was weird knowing that she probably knew his body better than anyone he'd ever been with—he'd never had a long relationship--and she'd never even seen it. "Yeah. I'm fine. Just a nightmare. Old hat by now."

She came in and sat down on the side of the bed. He scooted over to give her plenty of room. "Want to talk about it?"

He shrugged. "Maybe." He thought about it a bit longer and decided he did. "Yes, actually." He paused, deciding how he wanted to tell it. She settled herself on the bed, crossing her legs and tucking her bare feet under her nightgown.

"There was this case I'd been working on with a task force. We ended up surrounding a drug dealer at a hotel. I ended up shooting him or thought I was shooting him. Turned out I'd shot one of his underlings. He wasn't a bad kid. Had just joined the gang a couple of weeks earlier and hadn't really done anything bad yet. I dream about taking that shot over and over again. Each time wishing I could take it back, but I can't."

"Was that the case that got you sent to investigate as kind of last chance thing?"

He nodded. "Yeah. My last chance to redeem myself. And we know how well that turned out."

"Did you intend to shoot the wrong person?" Sarah asked.

"No! Of course not. I thought I was being careful. Now I'm wondering if I wasn’t starting to hallucinate even then."

She reached out to touch his arm. "Then stop tormenting yourself. I'd say you've more than paid for your mistake. And an angel seems to believe in you."

Griff touched the center of his chest, where the warmth of Gabriel's grace was a constant, comforting presence. "I suppose. Not sure my subconscious is convinced, but thank you."

She squeezed his arm gently and got up. "Think you can sleep now?"

_ Probably not, _ Griff thought, but he nodded. "I think so."

Sarah walked to the door but turned around and paused against the door jamb. "Call me if you need anything."

"I will," he said, but he was thinking,  _ Not a chance. _ He did think that Bill was damned lucky to have her, though.

She left, and he lay down, punching his pillow in an attempt to get comfortable. However, he wasn't confident he'd get any more sleep this night.

***

Sarah lay in her bed, listening to Griff toss and turn in the next room. She wished she could help him. Actually, she knew she could. Bill suffered from nightmares sometimes as part of his panic attacks, and she knew he slept better when he had someone at his back. She suspected it would be the same for Griff.

But did she dare? What would Bill think? Was there any reason to tell him? She had no intention of doing anything inappropriate with Griff, even though her mind and body were occasionally confused. She'd see Griff out of the corner of her eye, and, for a moment, she'd think it was Bill. After getting off the plane and travelling through an unfamiliar airport, she'd been tired and feeling stressed and had come dangerously close to leaning against him, just as she would have against Bill.

Sarah decided to walk through the situation logically. Obviously, Bill wanted her to come back safely. They were about to potentially walk into enemy territory. Griff knew how to navigate the dangers better than she did. He would be sharper if he was well rested. She was reasonably sure her presence would help him sleep better.

Put like that, the choice seemed obvious.

Sarah got out of bed, wrapped her not-even-slightly sexy robe around her—there had been no reason to pack a sexy one, and she'd thrown an old, somewhat ratty one into her suitcase. She was wearing pajama pants and a long t-shirt. She was well armored and didn't give the appearance of a woman set on seduction.

Padding barefoot across the suite, she reconsidered, but her actions still made sense. She stole quietly into Griff's room, hoping maybe he'd managed to get to sleep. However, she could tell from the set of his body that he was awake.

He rolled over to look at her. "Sarah? Something wrong?"

She sat down on the bed. "I can hear you tossing. You're not sleeping."

"It's okay. I'm used to it."

She took a deep breath and said, "I know. But…well Bill sleeps better with someone at his back. Maybe you would too. We're going into who knows what tomorrow. I'd rather go with you well rested." There. She'd said it. Would he take her up on it?

She saw his eyes glittering in reflected light from street lamps outside. He opened his mouth, and she knew he was going to refuse. Then he closed it, paused and said, "You mean just sleep, right? I want to make sure I'm not misreading this."

She let out a soft huff of laughter. "Yes. Just sleep."

"Okay," he said, and she thought she heard relief in his tone. "I probably should be a gentleman and refuse, but…well, I'm finding myself unable to right now. So thank you."

He rolled over, presenting his back to her.

She lay down and settled up next to him. After a moment, she wrapped an arm around his chest. He stiffened briefly but then relaxed into her gentle embrace.

Within moments, she heard his breath soften into gentle snores.

She suppressed a chuckle. He even snored like Bill! She closed her eyes and let the familiar sound soothe her into sleep.

***

Sarah awoke the next morning and was disoriented for a moment. She was cuddled up to a back which felt like Bill’s, but she was pretty certain she wasn’t in her bed at home. Opening her eyes, she remembered. Of course. She was in the hotel with Griff, and she’d been helping him sleep better.

She could tell from the rhythm of his breath that he was awake. “Griff. Did you sleep okay?”

“Yes,” he said. “I did. Sorry. I probably should have awakened you when I woke up, but…I was enjoying the contact. I think I’ve been a bit touch starved.”

She surprised herself—and probably Griff too—by giving him a quick kiss on the top of his head. “I can only imagine.” She carefully retrieved her arm from around his chest and sat up. He rolled over and sat up too. It should have been an awkward moment, but surprisingly, it wasn’t. “You want the shower first?” she asked. 

He gave a tiny laugh and said, “Yeah, if you don’t mind. I won’t be long.”

She smiled at him and got up. “Want me to order some breakfast from room service?” She let her eye twinkle a bit. “Since the black ops fund or whatever is paying for it.”

This time he laughed out loud and answered. “Absolutely. Why don’t you order two of the most expensive things on the menu, then?”

“I think I just might,” she said as she left the room.

The expensive choices were between some breakfast thing with salmon or the steak and eggs. Hoping that Griff was like Bill in his food choices, she opted for the steak and eggs, ordering the steak medium since she had no idea what he liked.

Griff came out of the bedroom, dressed in tailored slacks and a white Oxford shirt. “Lex knows his clothes,” he said, glancing down at the slacks.

“They do look nice,” Sarah said. “I’ve placed the order. They said about 20-30 minutes.”

“Gives you enough time to get ready?” he said, with a smile and a wink. “I know you women can take forever, fussing with your hair or whatever.”

She gave him a playful swat on the way by. “You have me confused with a city woman. We’re more sensible in Kansas.”

He tipped an imaginary hat, and she started for the bathroom. A quiet “Hey,” stopped her. She turned.

“Thank you for last night,” he said. “That did help, and I appreciate it.”

She gave him a smile. “You’re welcome. I do want you sharp today.”

His cheeky “Yes, ma’am!” followed her into the bathroom. 

By the time she had showered and dressed, breakfast had arrived. She heard Griff talking to the person delivering it and followed the smell of food into the central area, where everything had been set up on the table in front of the suite couch.

Griff was messing with his hair, finger coming it and grumbling something under his breath. She laughed. "I thought you said I was the one who was going to be fussing with my hair."

He turned, to face her, red creeping up to his forehead. "Yeah. I just hadn't realized how long it had become."

She didn't think it look bad at all. Yes, it was longer than Bill's and curled more at the nape of his neck, but it wasn't messy. "Looks okay to me."

"It's not right for the FBI image I like to present."

"You're going to be IRS today. I doubt anyone will worry if you're a bit on the long side."

He shrugged and walked over to the table, picking up one of the plate covers.

"I hope it's okay," Sarah said. "I wasn't sure what you liked."

He sat down, grabbed a fork and started eating. "It's fine. Because of all the meds they had me on at the hospital, it's been so long since I was interested in food at all. Right now, just being hungry is a novelty."

They ate in comfortable silence. While the food wasn't bad, Sarah wasn't sure it was worth what the hotel was charging for it either.

Griff finished first and went back to his room. A moment later, he came out dressed in a suit jacket which matched the dark trousers. She noticed that, with the addition of the jacket, it was like a switch had flicked. Gone was the slightly uncertain man tortured by nightmares. In his place was an agent, ready to work.

She hastily finished her last few bites of food, stood up and checked herself in the mirror. She was wearing the same dark blazer and navy skirt she had worn when Lex had taken her ID photo. She'd replaced the cream blouse with pink and added a scarf dotted with blue flowers a few shades lighter than her skirt.

"You look good," Griff said. Even his voice was different, deeper and more assured.

"Thank you." She picked up the purse she had brought, a professional leather bag her mom had bought for her just before she had moved to Jericho. She hadn't used it much, it being a bit too formal for her job at the library, and it still looked practically new.

Griff gave her the tablet they had bought, and it just fit inside her bag.

"You have your ID and the business cards Lex printed for you?" he asked.

Lex's tiny printer had been amazing. He had business card blanks with perforations so fine they disappeared when separated. He'd had an official looking template with the IRS logo on it. Sarah would have believed them real if she hadn't watched them printing out in her living room. The hacker certainly knew his business.

She patted her purse. "Right here."

"All right. Let's go."

He walked out the door, back straight and stride smooth and confident. Sarah followed, feeling certain this would go well.

Lex had arranged for a rental car with GPS navigation. She programmed in the destination, but Griff didn't seem to need it. He changed into the proper lanes well in advance of the system prompts. Sarah left him to the driving and watched the city go by. She had never been to D.C., and it was so different from either Jericho or Chattanooga. She'd thought she'd grown up in a city, but this was so much more crowded, and the traffic was much worse.

"You used to live here?" she asked Griff.

He chuckled. "Well, not this D.C., but yes, I was living in a version of this city."

"Is it very different?"

He shook his head and turned onto yet another street that looked pretty much like every other street. "Not too much. A few differences." He pointed to a Korean Barbeque restaurant on a nearby corner. "In my version that's an amazing deli with the best corned beef sandwiches you've ever tasted."

She wondered about the whole alternate universe thing. She'd never thought about it much. If anyone had asked, she supposed she would have agreed that they were a possibility, but she'd certainly never thought she'd find out for certain.

It didn’t take them long to get to the office building where Miller had worked. Griff found parking in a nearby lot, and they walked inside. There was a large wrap-around reception desk in the lobby, and Griff walked confidently up to it. Sarah followed, trying not to look as nervous as she felt.

"On which floor might we find ASSC?" he asked the pretty receptionist.

"They are on five and six," she said. Her eyes travelled over Griff appraisingly, and Sarah was surprised at the sudden stab of jealousy that went through her. He wasn't Bill, damn it! There was no need for that.

"Thank you, ma'am," Griff said. "You have a nice day."

"You too," she responded. Sarah noted that the receptionist’s eyes followed Griff's progress to the elevator, said eyes firmly fixed on his ass. Which did look quite nice in those slacks.

Once in the elevator, Griff huffed out a laugh. "I'm almost surprised she didn't slip me her phone number. And she's married, too, from the ring."

"She was rather obvious about it," Sarah said. To her horror, her tone came out as disapproving rather than amused, which had been what she had been aiming for.

He gave her a wink. "Why, you're not jealous are you? I'm not Bill, you know."

She felt her face grow hot. "I know that, but—"

He put an arm around her and gave a friendly squeeze. "I shouldn’t tease you. It can't be easy dealing with three of us."

She quickly hugged him back before the elevator doors opened.

As soon as the door opened, Griff's professional agent face was back on, and he strode over to the receptionist desk. Sarah was relieved that there was a young man in professional attire behind the desk. Maybe they wouldn't have a repeat of downstairs.

Griff handed over his ID and a business card. “I’m Griff Krenshaw with the Internal Revenue Service.” He motioned to Sarah. “This is Sarah Koehler, my associate. We’re investigating Ben Miller, and we’d like to speak to his boss, co-workers and subordinates.”

The young man took a quick look at Griff’s credentials and gave Sarah a pointed look. She hastily handed hers over as well, trying to look as if she did this sort of thing all the time.

“Do you have paperwork authorizing this?” he asked after barely looking at Sarah’s ID.

Lex had anticipated this and had prepared an official looking authorization for these interviews. Sarah pulled the papers out of her purse and gave them to the receptionist.

Griff shifted his position, and Sarah wondered why until she realized he had moved so he could see the nameplate on the man’s desk. “I’d appreciate any assistance you can give us in this matter, Bill.”

Sarah was amused by the name.

Bill didn’t relax his professional but not cooperative posture at all. So much for Griff’s first attempt to build rapport. “I’m going to have to take this back to the office manager to see how we want to proceed with this.”

Griff nodded, his composure not slipping.

Bill got up and started through a nearby door which presumably led deeper into the office. “You are on camera,” he said casually as he passed them.

As soon as he was out of sight, Sarah shot Griff a questioning look. He gave her a quick smile and a shake of his head, which she took to mean that he wasn’t concerned about their reception so far.

A few minutes, he came back with a stern woman dressed in a severe black business suit. “What’s this about an IRS investigation into Ben Miller? This is the first I’ve heard about it.”

Griff answered, his tone respectful but firm. “Well, ma’am, you wouldn’t have. We don’t discuss an ongoing investigation with anyone else until we move to the information gathering stage.”

“Ben’s not here at the moment. He’s meeting with important clients out of state.”

Sarah managed to stifle a chuckle at that. Well, Jericho  _ was  _ out of state. That was true.

“That’s fine,” Griff said. “Today we want to talk to people who know Mr. Miller and can answer some questions about his recent activities. And your name is, ma’am?” He stood firm, communicating with his body language that he wasn’t going to leave without what he came for.

The woman huffed but said, “Carolyn Williams.”

Griff inclined his head in thanks. “Then, Ms. Williams, if you could show us someplace we could conduct our interviews?”

Her mouth pursed, but she motioned them through the door Bill had gone through to find her. “I think we have a conference room free down here.”

Bill went back to his desk as Sarah and Griff followed Carolyn. She opened a door and conducted them into a small room big enough for just a round table and four chairs. A tiny side table holding a phone and a box of tissues was the only other furniture in the room. “Will this be sufficient?” she asked.

“It will be just fine, ma’am,” Griff said. “We’d like to start with Mr. Miller’s assistant if he has one and then his co-workers and subordinates. We’ll leave talking to his boss for last.”

Carolyn’s lips pursed again. “How long do you think this will take? We are a busy office, you know.”

“I know. We’ll do our best to disrupt you as little as possible.”

She suddenly got a suspicious look on her face. “How do I even know you are who you say you are?”

“We gave your receptionist our credentials.”

“I want to call your supervisor and make sure you’re authorized to be here.”

Sarah was prepared for this, and she reached in her purse to pull out a business card for “Alexander Hamilton.” She handed it to the woman, who immediately went to the phone and dialed the number.

Sarah wasn’t worried about this. She was confident Lex would do what he needed to in support of their story.

A few minutes later, Carolyn put down the phone. She was scowling. “It appears that you are who you say you are. All right. I’ll send in Ben’s assistant, and she can get the next person when you’re ready for them.”

Sarah suppressed a smile. Apparently it hadn’t occurred to Carolyn that, if their credentials were fake, the number of their supposed “boss” probably would be too.

As soon as she left, Griff sat down. Sarah took the seat next to him.

“They think they are checking and being so thorough,” Griff said, his voice pitched low enough that Sarah had to strain to hear it.

“I’d been thinking the same thing,” she said.

“Get out the tablet and let Lex know we’re in for now. You can communicate with him under the guise of taking notes.”

She got out the tablet. “I can do that. But you still want me to take notes, right?”

“Yes, although most of what I’ll be asking will be filler. What we really need is the names of other associates to check out. We need to figure out how big and well organized this thing is.”

Sarah nodded and swiped her way into the tablet. She sent a quick note to Lex, who responded back immediately with an animated thumbs up gif. She shook her head. Of course he would!

It wasn’t long before a woman hesitantly peered into the conference room. Griff motioned her to sit, and he started asking questions.

Three interviews later, Sarah was bored and saw what he had meant. Most of the questions were related to his lifestyle, spending and travel habits and the like. Did he have any new friends was a more relevant question, but unfortunately, the answer was mostly no, although one of his teammates did mention he thought Miller had talked about a Michael Lee. Sarah made a note of the name and sent it to Lex for him to check out. Unfortunately, no one knew anything about offshore accounts. Everyone asked expressed shocked disbelief that Miller had more than a few thousand dollars to his name. He had a reputation of spending pretty much everything he made. Which fit the visible pattern. Sarah hoped that would give Lex something to research, but she doubted it.

About halfway through the sixth interview, Sarah noticed Griff shifting in his seat. His voice was pitched a bit higher, and he stumbled over some of his words. There was a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead. She sat up straighter and started paying more attention to him than to the questions and answers. Everything she saw heralded an oncoming panic attack.

She reviewed the route out of the office. Three office doors to a left turn and then straight through the reception area. Only two doors between them and the elevators. She was fairly certain the stairs were to the left of the exit from the suite. Not a long distance, although she thought it would feel like miles if Griff was in a panic.

When the latest interviewee left, she leaned over. “Are you okay? You look like you might have a panic attack coming on.”

He rubbed his chest, right over where Gabriel’s grace resided. “I think it’s worse than that. I think there’s a demon in the office.” His voice was high and thready.

"It wasn't anyone we interviewed, was it?" Sarah asked.

"I don't think so. I think the grace would have warned me." Sarah could hear how much trouble he was having with speaking.

She moved into action on instinct. Grabbing, the tablet, she messaged Lex.  _ Demon in the building. Griff about to panic. We need a distraction. Get us out of here! _

Lex's response was almost instantaneous.  _ Are you safe? _

_ For the moment _

_ Keep Griff as calm as you can. Give me five minutes. _

She glanced over at Griff, who was struggling for breath.

_ Make it three _

That done, she leaned over Griff. "Easy there. Breathe. One breath in. One out. You can do this. Lex is going to get us out of here. We just need to give him time to work."

Griff's breathing didn't change. If anything, it got worse.

Sarah had to shove down her rising panic. One of them had to remain calm here, and it had to be her. She controlled her own breathing and started rubbing Griff's back, reminding him over and over to control his breathing.

She really hoped Lex would hurry.


	13. Chapter 13

Lex had been dividing his attention between messages from Sarah and his own research. He had been attempting to trace the serial numbers on the HAZMAT gear, and it was giving him more trouble than he'd expected. Some of the databases from his universe didn't exist here, and he was having to get creative.

It didn't help that Sarah kept sending him names from their interview, and he allowed himself to get distracted by running background checks on them. It was easier than the serial number search. Michael Lee looked potentially interesting, and he made a note to do a more complete search on him.

When Sarah's message came in that there was a demon in the building and they needed a distraction, Lex abandoned everything else to focus on getting them out. He allowed himself five seconds to swear at himself for not hacking into the building earlier. Setting off the fire alarm was the easiest distraction, and he could have done that in seconds if he'd already been in the building network.

Now he had to do a quick hack under pressure. Good thing he'd been doing those most of his adult life.

He knew the location of the tablet Sarah was using, and he quickly uploaded a custom program to it. That took 30 seconds, and he tapped his fingers impatiently at the slow cellular connection. LTE was supposed to be faster than this!

Once the app was uploaded, he was able to scan for nearby network connections. Ah! There was one that no one had bothered to rename. From the name, Lex knew it was a standard Cox router. He could hack those in his sleep. Another 30 seconds and he was in. Now where was he? Not ASSC. Well good. On principle, he hated to deal with stupid adversaries, even though it was easier. He supposed it was some sort of warped professional pride.

Ah, it was another company on the 3 rd floor of the building. And look. Cox supplied Internet access to the entire building. Which meant…Yes. There it was. The management company's server.

Two minutes total. He wanted to message Sarah to see if they were all right, but that would take precious seconds they might not have. He gritted his teeth, hoping this would work. He really didn't want to have Bill kill him.

The management company had slightly better security than the first company, but it was still well within his capabilities.

At three and a half minutes from Sarah's last message, Lex started the fire alarm blaring through the entire building. He sat back and stretched his cramped fingers. He hoped it would be enough. Now it was up to Sarah.

***

Sarah was counting the seconds in her head. Griff's breathing was becoming more ragged by the second, and he was starting to shake and whimper under his breath. She leaned on his back, hoping the contact would ground him, but it didn't seem to be helping much, if at all.

Fortunately, the next interviewee was taking a long time to arrive. Sarah wasn't sure what she'd do when he showed up, but she'd worry about that then.

It had been almost three minutes, and Sarah was mentally urging Lex to "get on with it already" when someone appeared in the doorway. It was a woman Sarah hadn’t seen before, and she was dressed in a severe dark suit similar to the one Carolyn had worn. Perhaps some sort of unofficial office uniform for upper management?

"What's this here?" she asked, her voice stern. Sarah felt the hairs on her neck straighten at the hard glitter in the woman's dark eyes.

Uh oh. What to say? Almost before she had a chance to think, Sarah found herself saying, "We're with the IRS and have been interviewing people. My supervisor is having a panic attack, though. I'm trying to settle him so we can leave." She was surprised at how calm she sounded.

All of her assumed calm vanished when the woman's eyes flicked to black. "Oh, I don't think so, honey. It seems like you already know too much, and we can't have that."

Shit! What now? She noticed Griff was trying to raise his head. No, that would just send him into full panic mode, and she couldn’t handle that right now. She gently put her hand on his head and exerted just enough pressure to keep him from raising it while hopefully not making him feel restrained.

Lex’s distraction went off at that moment in the form of the fire alarm. At least Sarah thought the fire alarm was Lex’s work.

The woman’s head shot up, and her posture stiffened at the same time Griff jerked away from her to press himself against the far wall. Unfortunately, he also saw the woman’s eyes and screamed.

While she appreciated Lex’s distraction, she would have wished for something that wouldn't have set off Griff. Also, perhaps something that would get people moving faster. She had the idea that office workers didn't pay much attention to fire alarms.

The woman recovered quickly, and her head was turning. Sarah wasn't sure of her intentions, and she didn't want to find out. Quickly, she stuffed the tablet into her bag and tossed it over one shoulder. The woman was shaking her head and advancing on them. In such a small space, she was only two or three steps away. Sarah retreated to stand in front of Griff, offering him what protection she could. However, she had no idea how to get around the woman and to safety. She could hear the rest of the office starting to evacuate, but she didn't think they were moving fast enough to protect her from whatever the woman had planned.

The woman was reaching out a hand, presumably to grab Sarah and toss her across the room. Just before she made contact, the sprinklers turned on, dousing them. People started screaming, and Sarah could hear running footsteps just outside the door.

The woman pulled her lips back from her teeth and actually growled. Sarah had never heard its like from a human before. She thought the woman was still going to grab her, but then she shook her head and said, "Fine. You win this round. But we'll still have you all, and there's nothing you can do to stop it." With those words, she turned on her heel and departed.

Sarah took one second to breathe in relief. Then she grabbed Griff by the arm. The man was taking hitching breaths and looked as if he'd be screaming if he had enough air.

"Come on, " she said, half-dragging him behind her. She'd settle him once they were outside. Right now, she just wanted to be as far away as possible.

She and Griff joined the press of people walking in a mostly orderly fashion down the five flights of stairs. The spray of water from the sprinklers made the footing treacherous, and she and Griff each almost slipped, but he managed to get enough of his wits back to stop her from falling, and she was able to steady him the one time he missed a step and almost went down.

Finally, they were out. All the office workers started milling around, taking out their phones and either talking or texting. Sarah notice the demon on the other side of a small group, and she hurriedly walked away, hoping she could vanish in the press of bodies before the woman could follow her.

After she half dragged and half carried Griff for several blocks, she dared to turn back. No one even vaguely resembling the woman was behind them. It appeared as if they were safe, for the moment.

Luckily, they were a half a block away from a bench, and she headed for it. As soon as she reached it, she dropped down onto it, pulling Griff with her. The man immediately leaned over, putting his head between his knees and shivered.

"Griff. Just breathe. We're out of there. We're fine."

She noticed a pinging sound coming from her purse, and she realized it was the iPad. It was probably Lex trying to find out if they were safe. She ignored it for the moment in favor of pulling Griff into a grounding hug. Passersby were giving them odd looks, but they were the least of her concerns.

"Griff? Are you still with me?"

He moved his head in what she took to be a nod. "We're out of there. She's gone. We're safe for the moment, but we need to get to the car and back to the hotel."

He moved again, and this time she was sure it was a nod. He started to speak, stopped and then finally managed to say, "She's not far away. We can't stay here."

His words chilled her, and for a moment, she wasn't sure what to do. Then she remembered the insistent beeping. Glancing down the street, looking for the demon, she reached into her bag and pulled out the iPad. Then she hesitated, not wanting the demon to come upon them unawares while she looked at the tablet.

"It's fine," Griff said, finally raising his head. His face was pale, and his eyes were sunken into darkened sockets, but his amber gaze was clear. "I'll know if she gets close. Find out what Lex wants. I'll be able to walk in a minute, and we can get away from here."

She nodded in relief and looked down at the tablet. The entire lock screen was filled with messages from Lex, their words ever increasing in concern, ending with one that just said,  _ Please. _

She swiped and input the passcode and messaged him back to assure him that they were fine, for the moment.

Her phone rang then, and she answered.

"Where are you?" came Lex's reassuring voice.

"A couple of blocks away from the office building," she said. "We need to get back to the car, and—"

"Forget the car," came Lex's barked command. "I'll take care of it from here. Report it stolen. Did you leave anything of yours in it?"

"No," she said, somewhat taken aback by the urgency of his tone.

"I've got your location, and I've sent an Uber to you. It should be there in—" He paused, and Sarah thought he was looking up the location on his computer or phone. ''—less than two minutes," he said after a moment. "I've hacked into nearby cameras, and I can see you. I'll keep any eye out for anyone suspicious."

"Griff says his grace will warn him if she gets close," she said.

"Good. Get the Uber to take you back to the hotel. Check out and get a taxi to the airport. Let me know when you’re in the cab, and I'll book you for the next flight out. It probably won't be heading in this direction, but I'll get you routed back here. Right now, I just want you out of D.C."

"All right," she said, suddenly glad to have Lex backing them up.

As promised, the Uber arrived a minute later. They returned to the hotel, hastily packed their bags and caught a cab to the airport. Griff never looked quite over his shock, but he kept up with her through the cab, plane flight to Newark and then onto a plane headed for Denver, where Lex said he and Bill would meet them.

As soon as they settled into their first class seats—Sarah suspected Lex had done something to bump two other passengers because she heard two businessmen protesting that they had their seat assignments and what did the gate attendant mean about their tickets being no good?—but, by then, she was just happy to settle into her seat. Griff passed out almost as soon as they sat down, and he didn’t wake up until they landed in Denver.

She was certain that wasn't a good thing, but there wasn't anything she could do about it, so she watched the in-flight movie and tried not to be too obvious about watching the other passengers.

By the time they arrived in Denver, and she fell into Bill's waiting arms, she had decided she'd had quite enough adventure for a lifetime. Unfortunately, she suspected there was still plenty more to come.


	14. Chapter 14

Relief flowed through him when Lex saw Sarah and Griff walking off the plane. Sarah had one hand on Griff's shoulder, and he looked half a step away from falling over, but he was moving under his own power.

He and Bill hurried over. Lex put an arm around Griff's waist to steady him so Sarah could let go and be engulfed in a huge hug from her husband.

"You okay, buddy?" Lex asked Griff.

He nodded, but Lex wasn't convinced. He was supporting a lot of Griff's weight.

Glancing over at Sarah and Bill, he saw they were still holding each other. He hated to break up the moment, but he didn't want them staying here any longer than they had to.

He'd had that conversation with Bill on the way, and the deputy reluctantly broke the hug. "We have to go, babe. We might not be safe here."

Sarah nodded but didn't let go of her husband's waist while they walked.

Griff leaned heavily against Lex, but he started walking after them.

When they got to the parking lot, Bill led them to his old GMC Jimmy.

"Where’s the SUV?" Sarah asked. Then a look of horror crossed her face.

Griff straightened and his head shot around to look behind them. Lex followed his gaze but saw nothing suspicious.

Bill started laughing.

"What?" Lex asked.

"She's worried about her car. It's at KCI."

Lex relaxed and put his arm back around Griff. "Is that all?" he said at the same time Sarah said, "That's not funny, Bill! I need my car!"

Lex shook his head. "Don’t worry about it. I already took care of it. Someone is driving your car now, and it should be at your house in about—" He took out his phone, without shifting his grip on Griff. He was adept at one-handed use of his phone. After a few swipes, he said, "—an hour and a half."

"You have a stranger driving my car?" Sarah asked, sounding half-outraged.

"It's fine," Lex said as he put away his phone. "I thoroughly vetted them."

Sarah didn't seem entirely mollified, but Bill opened the passenger door, and she climbed into the SUV. Lex helped Griff in and joined him in the backseat.

As soon as Lex settled himself in his seat and buckled his seatbelt, Griff curled up on the seat, head in Lex's lap. As far as the hacker could tell, the other man was asleep instantly.

Sarah turned to watch them. "He slept through the whole flight too." She pitched her voice low, presumably so as not to awaken him. "I'm worried about him."

Lex's fingers absently combed through Griff's hair, which felt so much like his own. "Seeing demons seems to really affect him. Hopefully some rest will set him to rights." He kept his tone confident, but he was concerned too. Not for the first time, he wished there were some way to get in contact with Gabriel, short of opening the portal back to his own universe.

"Did we find anything useful?" Sarah asked.

"You did," Lex said. "I've got several threads leading to Cheyenne, including that name you sent me, Michael Lee. I've got three links there, so it's time to make the trip and see what we can find."

"We?" Sarah asked.

Lex glanced down at Griff, who still seemed to be asleep. "I was thinking me and Griff, but I might have to go by myself."

"Not a chance," Griff said, eyes still closed. "Give me a night's sleep, and I'll be fine."

Lex doubted that, but he'd probably have no choice. He didn't want to go without backup, and he had no intention of putting Sarah in danger again.

"What did you find in the warehouse?" Sarah asked, obviously wanting to be filled in on what she had missed.

Now that Lex knew Griff was awake, he sensed he was listening as well.

"Nothing good," Lex said. "Enough guns for a small army. HazMat suits and Geiger counters."

"I traced the guns," Bill said. "It went to what looked like yet another holding company."

"Send me the name," Lex said. "I'll trace it when we get back and see if it links to any of the other ones we've found."

"HazMat suits and Geiger counters? Plus Miller's company works on nuclear weapon parts," Sarah said. "Is someone planning to set off a bomb? In Jericho? Is that what Gabriel sensed?"

Lex shook his head. "We don’t know enough yet. Yes, I'm pretty sure a bomb is involved somehow. But who and where they are going to set it off is still the question. We need to figure that out before we can stop them."

"If we can stop them," Griff said.

"We’re going to stop them," Lex said. "Count on it. This kind of investigation is what I've spent most of my adult life doing."

Lex's fingers itched to be on his laptop, tracking down leads. Why did Bill insist on driving exactly the speed limit? They could be back in Jericho at least a half hour earlier if he'd drive a reasonable speed. He decided it was probably a bad idea to tell Bill that his phone also had an app to detect radar guns. So far they were getting along reasonably well, despite last night's breaking and entering.

However, they did finally get back. Griff had fallen back asleep, and Lex gently shook him awake. "Come on, man. Let's get you into an actual bed."

Lex basically sleep-walked Griff into the house and settled him in the guest room. He wasn't sure the man had really awakened for the transfer. As before, Sadie followed them into the guest room and curled up beside Griff as soon as he was lying down and under the blankets.

When he got back to the living room, he saw Sarah collapsed on the couch, eyes only half open. He heard Bill moving about in the kitchen.

"Griff's settled. Why don't you go sleep too? It was a long trip back for the both of you."

She shook her head. "It's too early. If I sleep now, I'll just mess up my schedule."

Bill emerged from the kitchen, carrying a steaming mug. Lex caught the distinctive scent of chamomile, and he smiled. Bill winked at him. Sarah huffed out a sigh. "Bill, you know what will happen if I go to sleep now."

He put the mug down beside her. "Yes, I do. You will get some rest and be much happier when you wake up. I think you look tired enough to sleep straight through, even if you go to bed now."

She opened her eyes all the way to give him a glare, but it quickly morphed into a smile. Lex had to look away. The affection in that smile deserved to be private.

"All right," she said, getting up and picking up the mug. "But you're the one who will have to deal with me if I'm grumpy."

Bill's eyes developed a wicked twinkle. "Nope. I'll be at work. Lex and Griff will have to deal with you."

Lex recoiled in mock-horror while Sarah laughed her way into the bedroom.

As soon as she was gone, Bill's expression turned serious. "I really should get back to work. Jimmy was willing to cover for me, but I've still got about half of my shift left."

Lex waved him to the door. "You go. I still have some more leads to track down. I want to see if I can come up with a better idea of what awaits me and Griff in Cheyenne."

"You going to leave tomorrow?"

Lex nodded. "I think so." He rubbed his chest, where the grace seemed to be more…insistent…each day.

"You too?" Bill asked, rubbing his chest also.

"Yeah. It's like it knows or something. And it's trying to tell us we don’t have a lot of time."

"Right then. I'll be back in about 5 hours or so."

"Works for me. I'll work for a while and then see if I can catch a short nap. I'm not sure I'm going to have the luxury of a full night for a while."

Bill walked over and put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't run yourself into the ground. We need you for this."

Lex smiled, gratified for the concern. "I won't. I do know how to pace myself." He shrugged. "Was crap at it when I was younger, but I'm better now."

Bill squeezed his shoulder and then started for the door. "See that you do." He jingled the handcuffs at his belt. "I do know how to use these, you know."

Now it was Lex's turn to laugh.

As soon as Bill had left, his expression turned serious. He didn't like much of what they had found already. He thought that a picture was starting to come into focus, and it wasn't a good one. He was as certain as he could be that someone had a bomb—hopefully only one—on American soil and was planning to use it. Jericho was a part of this in some way, but he couldn't quite make everything come into focus.

Maybe if he dug further into this Michael Lee.

Completely comfortable with the Koehler kitchen by now, he made himself a mug of black tea and sat down at his computer, prepared to lose himself in research for several hours.

***

Griff woke up, disoriented and with a headache the size of New Jersey. Which he supposed was better than one the size of Kansas. He lay in bed for a moment, trying to work out how he felt. And what exactly had happened in D.C.

He'd  _ known _ a demon was coming. But how had he known? The easy answer was that the grace had warned him, but he knew that wasn't it. The grace had been quiet, but he'd known anyway. Known deep inside that there was a demon nearby. And why did demons bother him more than anyone else? Sure, Lex had be afraid when he'd been fighting the one, but he'd kept on fighting. Sarah had popped off a fucking exorcism! While he'd been cowering by the car, trying to get as far away from it as possible.

He sighed and rolled over, trying to will his headache into submission. It hadn't ever worked in the past, but you never knew. It might work this time.

It didn't, of course.

Finally, he gave up thinking—it was only making his headache worse anyway—and got up to see who else was awake. He was pretty sure it was late, but that didn't mean Lex wasn't still up. As soon as he moved, Sadie stirred and licked his hands. He stopped to pet her for a minute. He'd always loved dogs, but his FBI schedule hadn't allowed him to own one. He found her soothing and even grounding, and he felt better after giving her some attention.

Wandering into the living room, he saw Lex hunched over his computer, scowling at something on the screen. Without even glancing up, the hacker grabbed something and tossed it at Griff, who caught it reflexively. Right. A bottle of Excedrin Migraine. He almost chuckled.

"I usually take six, but your mileage may vary," Lex said.

"Already knew that. We all saw you swallow them down like candy a couple of days ago." As he spoke, he opened the bottle and shook out…four? Yeah. Four was good. He could tell himself he was behaving better than Lex if he only took four. He dry swallowed them and put the bottle back beside Lex.

"How you feeling?" Lex asked.

"You just told me to take six of these and you have to ask?"

Lex shrugged. "It's the polite thing to say?"

Griff snorted and sat down on the couch beside him. "I think we're beyond that by now. Find anything?"

"I think so. Maybe."

"Well, that was definite."

Lex shook his head. "These people aren't bad at covering their tracks. Everything is taking longer than I'm used to."

Griff didn't like the sound of that. Of course, he hadn't liked really any of this so far. Except for the getting out of the mental institution. He'd been okay with that part.

"So walk me through it," he said.

Lex sighed and leaned back on the couch, closing his eyes. "Okay. Several threads lead in the direction of Cheyenne. First, I tracked down what I'm pretty sure is a real demon sighting."

Griff couldn't help a shudder at that. Lex absently reached out and patted his leg soothingly. Sadie jumped up on the couch as soon as Lex moved his hand back to the keyboard.

"She's not allowed up here," Lex said.

Griff glanced in the direction of Bill and Sarah's room. "They aren't here, so it's like it's not happening."

"Is that FBI logic?" Lex asked, tone amused.

"Something like that. So continue on."

Lex nodded and said, "Second, there's a mess of holding companies involved in this, and a board member lives in Cheyenne. Of course, others live in Seattle, D.C., Chicago and Nashville, so that one may be a coincidence."

"Or those are all cities being targeted by bombs," Griff pointed out.

Now it was Lex's turn to shudder. "Let's hope not. And besides, who'd want to bomb Nashville?"

"Someone who hates country music?"

Lex gave a small chuckle. "Possible, but unlikely."

"I don't know. I see demons going in more for hard rock or heavy metal."

Lex opened his eyes, his expression thoughtful. "Do demons even listen to music?"

"You're asking me?" Griff was slightly encouraged that he was discussing demons with a minimum of distress. Maybe the next time he saw one, he just needed to imagine it in ridiculous cowboy boots doing a line dance?

"Enough of that. By the way, I did a bit of demon research. According to what I could find, they don't like salt. Or holy water. We should let Bill and Sarah know to load up their shotgun shells with rock salt."

Griff nodded. He'd remember to tell them at breakfast. "Okay. What else?"

"The third string is the Michael Lee who came out of your interview. His public face is as an investor. He's put plenty of money into ASSC, most of it earmarked for their nuclear weapons projects."

"And his not-so-public face?"

Lex scowled. "He's a white supremacist who's not afraid to talk about using violence to wipe out people 'who don't belong.'"

Griff couldn't help rolling his eyes at that. "Seriously? You know how many of those assholes I had to listen to in my time at the FBI? On both sides, criminal and people I worked with. Can't we deal with something original?"

Lex sat back up and started typing again. "Demons aren't original enough for you?"

"Okay, good point. So you said Michael Lee is tied to Cheyenne?"

Lex scowled at his laptop for a minute before answering. "Yeah, he lives there. And his company is based there. Interestingly enough, the demon sighting was just a few blocks from his company."

Griff nodded. "So it sounds like we need to check it out." He had a thought. "Can't you hack into his company files from here?"

Lex shook his head. "I wish. No, remember how I said everything is taking longer than I thought it would? Lee apparently knows something about computer security or has hired someone who does."

Griff got it. "The important files are on a computer that's not on the network."

Lex made a finger gun motion at Griff. "Right in one. I already hacked his network, and I've seen references to certain files, but I can't find them. The most likely explanation is that they are on an isolated computer or internal network."

Griff leaned over Lex's shoulder to check the time on his computer. 2 am. "It's late, Lex. Why don’t you crash for a while? Plan to leave around 7 or 8? After breakfast?" He already learned that Sarah was a pretty good cook and made an excellent breakfast.

Lex yawned. "Yeah, I guess I can do that. Other than tracking down the company Bill found for the guns, which I'm pretty sure is going to lead to the same place as all the other ones, there's nothing left for me to investigate."

Griff nudged him until he stood up and started for the bedroom. Which is when he realized he'd relegated himself to sleeping on the couch.

He heard Lex's quiet voice from the direction of the guest room. "There's room. It's not like we haven't shared a bed before."

Griff considered for a moment before getting up and heading for the guest room. Lex had a point. And he did sleep better if someone was in the bed with him. Sadie only counted to a point, although she did follow and curl back in what was fast becoming her usual spot.


	15. Chapter 15

Sarah couldn't help herself the next morning. She knew the reasons Lex and Griff had to go to Cheyenne. She even agreed with them. But she also hated sending them off alone.

Bill, of course, picked up on her mood and came over to hug her from behind. "They'll be fine," he whispered into her hair.

She nodded and then proceeded to fix enough food to feed a small army.

Griff's eyes widened as she piled the dining room table high with pancakes, scrambled eggs, plus a plate with two over-easy eggs for Lex—she'd learned those were his favorite—bacon, her special home fries and a veritable mountain of toast. "I hope you don't expect us to eat all of that."

Bill regarded the table with a knowing expression. "I'll take the leftovers with me. Jimmy will always eat them."

Sarah shot Griff a stern look. "You're still underweight. Lex's clothes hang on you. Eat up."

"Yes, ma'am," he said with a grin at her eye roll at the ma'am.

Then she turned to Lex, who had brought his laptop to the table and was typing furiously. "Enough of that. Eat now. You'll have plenty of time to do more hacking during the drive."

Lex sighed, closed his laptop and apparently noticed the food for the first time. "I hope you don’t expect us to eat all of that."

Sarah, Bill and Griff exchanged amused looks at that.

They made greater inroads on the food than she'd expected, and she was happy to see Griff takes seconds and even a tiny helping of thirds. It seemed he was particularly taken with her pancakes. She packed up the leftovers to send with Bill, and then it was time for them all to leave. It seemed so odd to just go to work at the library as if nothing had happened, but she'd been away long enough.

Bill was the first to leave, since his shift was early.

Sarah packed some sandwiches for Lex and Griff to eat on their trip, and then she drove them to Hays to get their rental car because it was the only place open early. She hugged them both and sent them on their way.

Her day passed normally enough, which felt odd. She knew now that angels and demons existed. Someone was probably going to set off at least one nuclear bomb in the country. And here she was, helping Mr. Fields locate the latest issue of  _ Time _ in the rack—she suspected he knew where it was but asked for help because he was lonely since his wife died last year—and asking moms with toddlers to "Please keep the noise down. Other people are trying to read." In other words, a completely normal day at the Jericho library.

Bill called her twice to make sure she was okay, and each time she assured him she was. It was hard to believe anything bad could really happen in sleepy Jericho.

Lex texted her too, once when they arrived in Cheyenne and again when they found the right building. They were going to wait until early morning to do their raid, and he sent them the hotel they were staying at to kill some time and take a nap. She was amused when he complained that the most expensive place they could find was a Marriott suites chain.  Obviously, now that he had an unlimited credit card, he'd developed expensive tastes. Or maybe he'd always had them. She suddenly realized how little she actually knew about him.

Closing time for the library finally came--they closed a little early on Fridays. She helped Joanna put everything away, shooed Ms. Davis out, protesting the entire time that she "only had twenty more pages left and she  _ had _ to find out how it ended." This was normal. She always read in the library and never wanted to check anything out.

Finally, it was time to leave. She said her goodbyes and walked to her SUV. She climbed in and adjusted the seat  _ again _ . The guy who had driven it back from KCI had messed up all her settings. Her seat still wasn't positioned right, and he'd fiddled with her preset radio stations. When Lex got back, she was going to give him hell for it!

Pulling out of the parking lot, she idly noted a black sedan behind her, but she didn't pay it much attention. There were always unfamiliar cars on the road here.

However, Bill had taught her to pay attention to her surroundings, and she noticed the car following her through three turns. That was unusual enough to take note of.

Suddenly the hair on the back of her neck rose. She didn't know why, but she knew the car was trouble. She made a couple of quick turns to get back onto a main road. The car followed her, keeping its distance but staying with her through each turn.

Now she was definitely getting spooked. She fumbled in the purse on the passenger seat and got out her phone. Knowing that making the call was illegal didn't stop her. Right then, she'd be glad to get pulled over. The presence of a Jericho deputy would make her feel much better. Even the ones who had mercilessly pulled her over in those early days of dating Bill.

However, it was typical.  _ There's never a cop around when you need one _ ran through her head as she dialed Bill. He ought to be home by now.

"Babe?" came his welcome voice over the tinny phone speaker.

"Bill, someone's following me, and…I can't explain it, but I know he's bad."

"Where are you?"

"Corner of 5 th and Washington." That put her about a mile from home, but right now it seemed like forever.

"All right. Drive straight here, as fast as you can. I'll call in to the station and let them know to keep an eye out for you."

"No!" she found herself saying.

"No?"

"Bill? What if it's a demon?"

A pause on the other end. Sarah kept driving, trying to keep one eye on the road and the other on the car behind her, which was slowly closing the distance. She sped up. Even if she was right, and it was a demon, a part of her would still welcome a deputy pulling her over.

"Good point. Just get here as fast as you can. Don't stop at the house. Keep going to the end of the street, where there's the little wood we walk Sadie through.  I'll grab my shotgun and meet you there."

"Right." She floored the accelerator, thankful she had always been a good driver and that Bill had taught her some of the tricks he'd learned as a deputy.

The black car stayed with her but seemed content to follow her until she stopped. She followed Bill's instructions and drove past their house to the end of the street. She parked and, grabbing her purse as she dived out of the car, hurried to the little wood. Sarah heard a car stop behind her, wheels crunching on gravel. She knew it was playing into every horror movie trope ever, but she needed to know what was behind her.

A normal looking guy was climbing out of the car. He was dressed like a typical business man: dark suit, light blue shirt and contrasting burgundy tie. However, even from this distance, she could see the dead black of his eyes.

"Demon!" she yelled, hoping Bill was nearby. She thought about getting the mace out of her purse, but no, she was better off in the trees. It wasn’t a big or deep stand of trees, but she knew it as well as she knew the layout of her house, and, with a bit of luck she thought she could lose him. She ran as fast as she could, cursing the extra weight she was carrying. And the stabbing pain in her leg from where she'd injured herself several years earlier.

Just as she was about to reach the tree line, she saw Bill step out from cover, shotgun raised. "Down!"

She obeyed, dropping to the ground and hoping Bill could take the guy out. Otherwise, she was now vulnerable.

She heard the shotgun go off. Once. Twice. While Bill was shooting, she scrambled in her purse for the mace. It had worked to slow down the other demon. Maybe she could give Bill enough time to reload.

Bill was cursing, and she heard running footsteps approaching. With a surge of adrenaline, Sarah rolled to her feet, mace in hand. Her leg almost didn't support her, and she almost went back down. Gritting her teeth and trying to ignore the pain, she managed to stay on her feet. By the time she was mostly steady, the demon was in range, confident grin on his face, in spite of the holes in his shirt. It looked like the salt shells had hurt it but definitely not stopped it.

She raised the canister and fired off a shot. She got lucky and hit him directly in the face. He screamed, but she could tell it wouldn't slow him down much. Why hadn't they thought to get holy water? Salt was good, but holy water would have been better.

Bill yelled again, and she dodged out of his line of fire. As soon as she was clear, he fired again. This time she could see the damage inflicted by the salt. The demon's chest was starting to look ragged and bloody, but he shook off the effects, rubbed his tearing eyes and kept on coming.

Sarah took several steps back, starting to recite the exorcism, but before she could say more than the first few words, the demon dashed forward and grabbed her by the throat. She started choking, unable to get any words out.

Bill was screaming her name. The demon's fingers gripped her throat, and he lifted her several inches off the ground. His nails bit into her skin, and it hurt. He backed her against a tree and lifted her several more inches in the air. Her vision was graying around the edges. She was certain this was it.

She found herself hoping that angels and demons meant there was a Heaven and that she'd see Bill there.

Suddenly, Bill screamed her name louder, desperation, fear and anger in his voice. Her vision was narrowing into a black tunnel as the demon squeezed harder. Just before she passed out, she saw an explosion of white light. The demon screamed and dropped her.

She fell to the ground, rolling a few feet into a tree. Shaking her head to try to clear it, she used the tree at her back to give her some purchase to rise.

The demon's body was a smoking mess on the ground.

As she watched, a silvery blue light faded from Bill's outstretched hand, and he collapsed, limbs splaying out in every direction.

"NO!" she screamed as she darted forward, fear masking the pain in her leg. She skidded to a stop by his body and gathered him into her arms.


	16. Chapter 16

Griff did the driving to Cheyenne. He'd always liked driving and was good at it. He'd been amused that, of course, Lex had gone for the most expensive rental car at the place. It wasn't bad, although Griff thought it wasn't anything special either. A sedan trying too hard to be a sports car. He didn’t recognize the make and model. It was one of the things he'd noticed about this universe. With a few exceptions (Ford, BMW and a couple of others), all the makes and models were unfamiliar to him.

Lex spent the first hour of the drive alternating between typing on and swearing at his laptop. Apparently either the hacking wasn't going well, or he wasn't finding what he'd hoped for. Finally, he closed the lid and sat back in the passenger seat, closing his eyes and rubbing his forehead.

"Need some Excedrin Migraine?" Griff asked.

"No," Lex answered. "I'll be fine after a minute. It was just frustrating is all."

Griff suspected Lex didn't get frustrated by hacking very often. "Didn’t find what you were looking for?"

Lex shook his head, eyes still closed. "No, I found exactly what I had expected. The company Bill tracked down? The one with the guns we found? The trail led to another one of the holding companies I already knew about. So it was effectively a dead end. I'd expected that but had hoped I'd find something else."

"We'll find a fresh lead in Cheyenne," Griff said. He was well used to the ebb and flow of investigations. In his experience, right about the time they seemed to be slowing to a crawl was when something broke. Or stopped completely, but he didn’t think that would be the case here.

"I'm sure you’re right," Lex said, with a sigh.

Griff drove on for a few more miles, deciding if he was going to ask the question he'd been meaning to ask Lex for a while now. Finally, he shrugged and decided to ask. "Are you going to go back to the CIA after this?"

Lex opened his eyes and sat up. "Funny you should ask that. I've been thinking about what I wanted to do after this is all over. Assuming we don’t get blown up."

Griff nodded. "Assuming that, yeah. So what have you been thinking about?"

Lex shrugged. "I don't really want to go back, actually. Two of my best friends died almost a decade ago, and most of the fun went out of it after that. Then my boss retired, and I've been basically going through the motions since then. Oh, I make sure I do my job right. People would get killed otherwise, but most of what I do, I can practically do on autopilot by now. This, though—" He indicated the laptop. "This has been a challenge. Figuring out how to deal with demons. Getting you out of the mental institution. This has been…well, almost fun."

Griff heard Lex's tone and knew that it had been more than "almost fun" for him. "So what then?"

"Gabriel mentioned something about 'hunting' before I went to get you. I was pretty sure he meant something other than hunting for game. I wonder if he wasn't talking about something like what we are doing now."

"Going after demons you mean?" Griff asked. His stomach felt unsettled, like it did almost every time they were mentioned.

"Maybe. But if demons exist, maybe other things do. Maybe he hunts them. He hunts with someone named Sam who apparently can do some hacking. But I bet he's not as good as me." Lex shrugged. "Maybe they could use some help. I think I'd like that."

Except for the demon part, Griff thought maybe he would too.

"What about you, Griff? What do you want to do?" Lex asked.

That was the reason he'd put off asking the question. He knew it would require him to examine the question for himself. What did he want to do? He didn't want to go back, and Gabriel had indicated he wouldn't have to. He didn't want to hunt demons, but, if he could sense them, he might be useful? And unless he went back, the only people he knew now were Lex, Bill, Sarah and Gabriel. Bill and Sarah had their own lives. They didn’t need a messed-up FBI agent butting in on theirs. But going with Lex? That wasn't so bad. He thought they'd make a pretty good team.

"I don’t know." Did he dare ask? He didn't used to be so reticent. Of course, he didn't used to be crazy either.

"If Gabriel does offer to teach me to hunt, would you like to go with me?" Lex asked. "I'm going to have to cut myself off from pretty much everyone in my current life." He paused. "Not that I really have anyone in my life, except my co-workers, and I don't spend much time with them outside of work."

Lex sounded so sad that Griff felt bad for him. It was a good point. Griff wasn't the only one who had lost basically everyone he'd known.

"Anyway, it'd be good to have you." He grinned. "Keep everyone guessing with three of us who look so much alike."

That was a good point. Well, since Lex had asked, it made it easy for Griff. "Yeah, I think I'd like that. If you're okay with it."

"I am." Lex's tone left no room for doubt.

"All right. Sounds like a plan." He'd not been sure before that he had much to live for. Maybe this gave him what he needed.

A few hours later, they arrived in Cheyenne. Griff had never been to the city, and he looked around with interest. It certainly didn't look like a place you'd find demons.

Lex was fiddling with his phone, grumbling about the hotel selection. Finally, he gave Griff directions to a Marriott chain. Apparently it was that or a Comfort Inn, which was "completely unacceptable." Griff was amused. As long as it didn't have bugs and did have a bed, he was okay with whatever.

Lex booked them in a two bedroom suite and made a point of upgrading their WiFi access to the fastest available. Griff wasn't sure why he bothered since he assumed he'd use his portable wireless thing. He'd learned to just go with Lex on certain things, though.

They went up to their room, and Lex immediately opened his laptop and started typing.

Griff dropped his bag in one of the rooms, doubting that Lex would even see one of the beds, much less actually lie down on it.

"What now?" he asked as he came back into the main room.

"I'm checking out the security on the building. Unless I see something that indicates otherwise, I'm planning to go in early in the morning. Maybe 2 am or so."

Griff checked the time on the in-room clock. About 2 pm. He was hungry and a bit tired. "How about I order us some food and grab a nap? Unless you need me for the planning part?"

Lex waved in his general direction. "Sure. Get me anything. I'll do my hacking, grab a quick nap myself and we'll still have plenty of time to do our planning."

Griff had been wrong. Maybe Lex would see one of the beds. He picked up the phone to order room service. A burger sounded good right about now.

***

Bill had needed to take several deep breaths at the sight of his wife running for her life away from a demon. He knew her safety was entirely in his hands, and he wasn't going to lose her.

He yelled at her to get down and was surprised at how quickly she responded. He let the demon have it with both barrels but was disappointed at how little effect the salt had on it. Obviously they needed something stronger. But what?

Sarah stood up, mace canister in hand and fired off a blast at the demon. Oddly, it seemed to have as much or more effect as the salt rounds. Not realizing he was having the same thought as his wife at basically the same time, he realized they should have gotten holy water.

While he'd been cursing their lack of preparation, his hands had been automatically reloading the shotgun. He yelled again for her to get out of the way, and she did. He fired again. Direct hits. Too bad they didn't seem to slow him down at all. He reached for Sarah, and, to Bill's horror, lifted her up by the throat and backed her against a tree, lifting her and scraping her against the bark.

Bill saw…well, not red but oddly, silver blue. He wasn't going to let that creature harm his wife! He didn't know how he knew, but suddenly he knew what to do. Yelling Sarah's name, he ran forward, power thrumming through his entire body and coalescing in his hand. Without knowing how he did it, he gathered everything in his hand and thrust it hard against the demon. Somehow he released it all, silver light exploding from his body.

He collapsed into darkness, hoping just as he passed out that he had managed to save his wife.

***

He wasn't sure how long he'd been out, but when he fought back to consciousness, he heard Sarah's voice.

"Yes, Griff, I've got all that. I think it'll work."

Was she on the phone? And calling Griff? Not Jimmy?

He was lying on something warm and soft and realized it was probably Sarah's lap. There were worse places, he supposed. He tried to remember what had happened. A demon. Power exploding from him. Where had that come from?

It suddenly occurred to him that perhaps he should let Sarah know he was alive and all right. He struggled to sit up and, with an effort of will, managed to open his eyes.

"Bill! You're alive!"

He tried to speak, but nothing came out. Licking his lips, he tried again and managed a weak, "I'm fine, darlin'."

"Griff, he woke up!"

Bill could hear Griff's voice on the phone but he couldn't make out the man's words. Maybe he drifted away for a little while after that?

The next thing he remembered was hearing Sarah say, "My leg is feeling better. I can get him inside by myself. I think."

Oh no! She was not going to carry him into the house. He wondered why no one had come out to help them. He'd fired his shotgun at least four times. That should have brought someone running.

Of course that's when he heard an approaching siren.

Sarah's arms tightened around him. "That's Jimmy, hon. He'll help you inside. Unless you think you need a hospital?"

He managed to shake his head and croak, "No hospital. Just get me inside."

Oh, God! How were they going to explain this to Jimmy?

"I'll explain to him, babe. Don't worry."

Bill closed his eyes, feeling tired, drained and as if something vital had been sucked out of him. He heard a car door open and close and recognized it as Jimmy’s car. His door had a distinctive squeal.

“Bill! Sarah! What happened?”

Jimmy’s voice had never sounded so good.

“Never mind,” Jimmy continued. “Let me call for an ambulance. Then you can fill me in.”

“No ambulance,” Bill managed to say. “I’m fine. Just get me into the house.”

“But, Bill. Your hand is burned. It looks kinda bad.”

He hadn’t been aware of it, but as soon as Jimmy mentioned it, he realized his right hand, the one he had channeled the power through, did hurt.

“It’ll be fine,” he insisted. He didn’t want to waste time at the hospital, sensing it would lead to awkward questions.

“I’ll bandage it when we get inside,” Sarah said. “Help me get him up.”

“Let me call for backup first,” Jimmy said. Bill knew that tone. He’d be in for it later.

As soon as Jimmy had called it in, he and Sarah lifted Bill to his feet. With their help, he managed to stumble the several hundred feet to their house. He still couldn’t keep his eyes open, but he tried to support as much of his weight as he could to help them out.

Once inside. Jimmy helped him to his chair while Sarah hustled off, presumably to get the first aid kit.

“What happened, man?” Jimmy asked.

Bill wasn’t sure what to tell his friend and partner but thought maybe he could buy himself some time. “You need to be out there. Can’t let the neighbors mess up the scene.” Actually, this was the first time ever that Bill had wished for a crime scene to be destroyed, but obviously, he couldn’t say that to Jimmy.

“You go,” Sarah said as she returned. “I’ll take care of Bill, and then you can take our statement.”

Bill heard two cars race by their house, and he recognized the engine sounds. Other deputies had arrived. He stifled a groan, still having no idea how to explain this.

“That’s our guys,” Jimmy said, and Bill heard him pulling out his notebook. With an effort, Bill managed to open his eyes, to see Sarah kneeling in front of him, laying out things from the first aid kit. She met his eyes and gave him a quick smile.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened, while you work,” Jimmy said, turning his notebook to a fresh page. As odd as the situation was, it was good to see his big partner, in his familiar uniform, performing his duties.

Bill was still struggling to come up with something to say when Sarah started speaking. “I don’t know who he was, Jimmy, but he came up behind me in his car when I got close to here. I called Bill, who told me to drive straight here and that he’d meet me. The guy was so close behind me that I got flustered and didn’t want to stop, so I drove all the way to the end of the block. I don’t know...I guess I hoped maybe I could lose him in the woods?”

Bill was impressed by her story. It was close to the truth but made it sound a little less premeditated by the two of them.

“I got out and ran. He followed me, and I was fumbling in my purse for my mace when Bill showed up with the shotgun. He fired but the guy didn’t go down. Then he grabbed me by the neck and was lifting me up. I struggled and managed to get free, and then Bill shot him again.” She paused, eyes tearing and obviously struggling for words. “I guess that was finally enough because he fell down and didn’t get up.”

Bill knew Jimmy could poke a ton of holes in the story if he wanted to, but he thought it might stick. After all, Jimmy had no reason to suspect the truth, nor did he have a reason to think they were making this up.

Jimmy scratched notes, and Sarah treated Bill’s hand. Finally, Jimmy asked, “How’d you burn your hand, Bill?”

Fortunately, Bill’s wits were coming back, and he had anticipated the question. “Cooking accident. I fumbled a pot when I was taking it off the stove. Was about to take care of it when Sarah called. Damn near dropped the phone in the sink, it hurt so bad to hold it.”

Jimmy gave him a look, which Bill recognized as  _ not sure I’m buying it, buddy _ , but Bill met his gaze evenly. Jimmy raised an eyebrow at him but let it go, at least for the moment.

"All right, you two," Jimmy said, closing and putting away his notebook. "Let me see what the crime scene guys are saying. I'll be back in a bit."

As soon as Jimmy was gone, Bill snorted. "Crime scene guys? These days that's basically me."

Sarah finished smearing his burn with cream and started bandaging it. "Good thing you're involved so you can't be part of the investigation. Could you bring yourself to bungle it otherwise?"

Bill had to admit she had a point. He always took pride in his work, and this one would be difficult to bury. "Nice, thinking, babe, with the story. Just enough truth to hold together but with enough changes to make it not look like you and I cooked it up together."

She was winding a bandage around his hand, loose enough to breathe but tight enough to protect. "Griff helped me work it out. He's good and thinks quickly on his feet."

She finished with the bandage, and Bill tested it. She'd done a good job. It hurt, but it was protected, and he thought it would heal fine. "Yeah, I noticed that with the car thing."

Sarah started cleaning up the mess she'd made. "Jimmy's not buying it, you know. Not completely. I think we're going to have to come clean and tell him the whole thing."

Bill had been thinking that, grateful that he was getting back a bit of energy. He still didn't want to try standing, but he was able to keep his eyes open now. "I know. We were doing okay until he asked me about my hand. I've never been able to lie to him." He gave Sarah a quick grin. "Unlike you, babe. You did great. I think he would have bought it if my hand hadn't been burned."

She smiled back and knelt in front of his chair, putting her head in his lap. "I was so worried. When you just collapsed, I thought for certain you were dead."

With his uninjured hand, he petted her hair. "You're not getting rid of me that easily. We worked too hard to get here."

"I love you, you know."

Bill smiled and leaned over to kiss her hair. "I know. And I love you too. We'll get through this."

She wrapped her arms around his legs and held on tight.

They stayed like that until Jimmy came back inside. Immediately, he said, "Oh, jeez. I'm sorry you two."

Sarah sat up and moved to the couch. "It's okay, Jimmy. What did you find out?"

Jimmy sat in the other arm chair. His expression was an odd combination of apologetic and disapproving. "What I found out is that your story doesn't add up at all."

"What do you mean?" Bill asked, a hint of  _ are you saying I'm lying _ in his tone.

Jimmy's expression grew less apologetic and more disapproving. "Well, in the first place, the position of the body and the wound patterns don't match your story. It looks like you were firing from the wood, Bill. Why would you have been there, if you'd just come out of the house like Sarah said?"

Bill deliberately didn't answer the question, knowing his partner well enough to sense that wasn't the real question. "What else, Jimmy?" He kept his voice low and inviting.

It worked. Jimmy took a deep breath and said "Well, yeah. I suppose the other stuff could be explained away. I can tell you were seriously frightened, Sarah, and maybe you got a few details wrong. But that doesn't explain the really weird thing."

"Which is?" Bill asked, still keeping his tone inviting.

"That the guy's body looks like he's been dead for more than a week. Now, I can't see why you'd be making up a story about shooting a dead body. Plus we have witnesses who said, yeah, the guy did get out of the car. Which he wouldn't have done if he'd been dead. So either you were chased by a zombie, Sarah, or there is something else seriously weird and wrong going on here."

Bill and Sarah looked at each other, communicating silently. Without even a nod, they agreed to tell him. With a small nod, Sarah indicated Bill should be the one to do it.

Bill took a deep breath of his own and said, "Not a zombie, Jimmy. A demon."

The word sat in the middle of the room like an unpleasant house guest who had overstayed their welcome.

"Come again, Bill?" Jimmy finally said.

"You heard me. A demon."

"But those don't exist," Jimmy insisted.

"Apparently they do," Bill said and proceeded to tell him the whole story. Lex, Griff, the first demon, Gabriel and what they had discovered so far. Jimmy sat quietly through it all, listening but giving no clue as to whether he believed any of it.

When Bill finished, Jimmy sat for a moment, working it through. Bill gave him time.

"That's a hell of story, Bill," he finally said.

Bill nodded. "It is."

"Got any way to prove any of it?"

Sarah spoke up. "We can call Lex and Griff. You can see for yourself how much they look like Bill."

Jimmy's eyebrows went up. Bill almost laughed. That expression meant the deputy hadn't expected them to be able to come up with anything. "We’re not asking you to take this all on faith, partner." Bill used the word deliberately, wanting to remind him of their long shared history.

Sarah had picked up the iPad she and Griff had purchased. Lex had said it was the safest way for them to communicate. She initiated a FaceTime. Jimmy waited, his expression patiently skeptical. Sarah propped the tablet where Jimmy could see the screen.

Lex's face, with Griff behind him, appeared on the screen. "Bill okay?" Lex asked.

Bill shifted position so he was visible to the front camera. "I'm okay."

"What happened, exactly?"

"In a minute, Lex. For now, I'd like to introduce you to Jimmy Taylor, my partner. He's having a bit of a tough time believing in demons and all the rest."

Lex nodded a greeting. "Hello, Jimmy. I'm Lex." He motioned over his shoulder with his chin. "And this is Griff. We're not exactly from around here."

Bill saw Griff stifle a chuckle at the irreverent comment.

Jimmy was staring at the screen, eyes wide, but Bill could see he wasn't convinced. "How do I know this isn't some sort of trick? Can you guys prove you are who you say you are?"

Griff answered this one. "It's hard to prove a negative, Deputy Taylor." He looked like he was considering for a moment. Lex spoke up. "Finger prints."

"What?" Jimmy asked.

Lex shrugged. "Our prints are either going to match Bill's exactly or will be different and won't be in any of your databases. If you'll give me a moment, I can scan our prints on my phone and send them to you."

Jimmy was frowning. "Scan them?"

Lex nodded. "Yes. I have an app that takes certified fingerprint images."

Jimmy shook his head at that. Bill was reminded once again that Lex's phone seemed a bit beyond what was available in his own universe.

"Okay. I guess," Jimmy said slowly.

"Hang on." Lex's image vanished for a few minutes. The tablet beeped with an incoming text right before Lex reappeared. "I just sent them."

Sarah picked up the tablet and swiped to the Message app, leaving the FaceTime call in the background. She held up pictures of two fingerprints. Even from a distance, Bill could see they were identical.

Jimmy leaned forward to examine them. "How do I know this isn't some kind of trick?"

"Why would I trick you, Jimmy?" Bill asked. "You've known me since we were both boys. If you can't trust me, who can you trust?"

"And you've known me for several years, Jimmy," Sarah said. "I know that's only a fraction of the time you've known Bill, but have I ever given you any reason to doubt me?"

Jimmy shook his head. "No, but—" He was still looking at the two fingerprints. "Assuming I do believe you took one of these from each of you, Lex, how can they be identical? I mean even identical twins don't have identical fingerprints."

Sarah brought the FaceTime screen back. Lex nodded at Jimmy. "Because we aren't really twins. We're all different ages, but as I understand it, we're all identical. Vessels for an archangel."

Jimmy was still shaking his head. "I don’t know. This is all a lot to take in."

"Tell me about it, Jimmy," Bill said. "I've had to fight two demons. They never covered that in our training."

"Hey, Bill," Lex said. "How did you kill the demon? When Sarah called us, she said you killed it. Not exorcised it."

Bill had been turning that over in his head while they'd been trying to convince Jimmy, and he thought he knew. "The grace," he said. "I think it was the grace." He paused, trying to put it into words. "I'm not sure how, but I think for a moment…well…for a moment, I think I was actually like an angel. I mean, we'd guessed that an angel could smite a demon. I think somehow I managed to channel all the grace and used it to smite the demon."

Lex looked excited. "Do you think you could do it again? And teach us how to do it?"

Bill shook his head. "No, I don’t think so. I think I used up every bit of it I had. You know that feeling of the grace in the middle of your chest?"

Both Lex and Griff nodded from the screen.

"Well, it's gone. I can't feel even a scrap of it left."

Sarah gasped, and Bill knew what she must be thinking. Lex's words from several days before echoed in his mind.  _ It's supposed to make me a bit stronger, and maybe my senses a little sharper. _

Bill had never been sure if it had actually made him stronger, but he'd suspected his wife had been counting on the grace to keep him safe.

"Nothing?" Lex asked, his tone disappointed.

"Nothing," Bill confirmed.

"Wait a minute?" Jimmy asked. "You smote…smited…oh whatever…the demon?"

"I think so," Bill said. "I can't imagine what else it might have been. I certainly couldn't have killed him any other way. Maybe if I'd had holy water, but I didn't."

"So last ditch strategy only," Lex said. "Not something we can count on."

"Nope," Bill agreed.

Jimmy was shaking his head, obviously still struggling to deal with all the information. "So demons want to set off a nuclear bomb? Why?"

"That's still the question," Griff said. "Lex and I are in Cheyenne hoping to answer that one."

"And what do you do when you figure it out?" Jimmy asked.

"Stop them," Lex answered, no room for doubt in his voice. "We can't let it happen. No one's exploded a nuclear bomb on U.S. soil yet, and I'm not about to let it happen on my watch."

"But if you're telling the truth, then this isn't even your United States," Jimmy protested.

Bill was reassured. If Jimmy had gotten to this point, he'd get the rest of the way soon enough. And he'd be a good ally when he got there.

"Doesn't matter," Lex said. "It's  _ a _ United States, and that's good enough for me."

"Me too," Griff said. "Besides, Gabriel wants it, and Gabriel sent Lex to get me out of Hell. I'm in no matter what."

Jimmy sighed and shrugged. "Well, I'd still be thinking you were all nuts or having me on, but I saw that body. It had been dead for a week, and that ain't normal."

"What's up with that, do you think?" Sarah asked.

"What's this about a body that's been dead for a week?" Lex asked.

Sarah filled him in, and, by the time she finished, Lex was nodding. "Okay, that makes sense."

"It does?" Jimmy asked, his tone plaintive. If this whole thing weren't so serious, Bill would have been feeling sorry for him. But he'd had his own world rocked a few days ago. His partner might as well deal with it too.

"Sure," Lex said. "We know the demons can keep their body alive when it's been shot to hell. Stands to reason that they could keep it mobile even when it's dead. Once the demon was gone, the body reverted back to what it would have been like if the demon hadn't been keeping it going."

Bill had to allow that it did make sense.

The conversation wound down quickly from there. Jimmy agreed to do what he could to close the investigation of the body as quickly as possible and to keep attention away from Bill and Sarah. He didn't anticipate any problems there. Lex and Griff said they were planning their mission in Cheyenne and that they'd call in the morning to let them know what they'd found.

They signed off, and Jimmy left to do his part.

Sarah asked if he was hungry and wanted dinner. Bill was hungry, but he'd almost lost his wife today, so he had other things in mind.

Food could wait until after that.


	17. Chapter 17

Griff was drifting in and out when he heard Lex's phone ring. He assumed it was Sarah and didn't pay it any mind until he heard Lex's voice, low but intense.

"How badly hurt is he?"

Griff was out of bed and in the sitting area almost before he was aware of his legs moving.

"What happened?" he mouthed to Lex, who waved him into a nearby chair.

"Sarah," Lex said. "Griff's here. I'm going to put you on speaker."

He put the phone down, tapped on the screen, and Sarah's voice was saying, "He doesn't look badly hurt. He just…I don't know…did something. The demon fell down dead and then Bill collapsed."

"All right," Lex said. "One thing at a time. Is he still breathing?"

Griff heard Sarah take a deep breath before answering, "Yes." A pause. "And his pulse is steady and around 80 or so."

Griff nodded. "That's good. You'll want to get him inside as soon as possible. Can you move him on your own?"

"I don't think so. I had to run from the demon, and I've got an old injury. My leg is hurting pretty bad. I don't think it will support both of our weight."

"All right. What happened, exactly? Just the high points."

He was gratified to hear her tone smooth out and calm down as she told the story. Griff glanced over at Lex, who nodded, his expression troubled.

As soon as she finished, Griff said, "You did very well. The police are probably already on their way, but if not, you'll need to call them. However, first we need to get your story straight."

"What?" came her confused voice.

Griff spoke evenly and calmly. "You and Bill just did an overkill on what looks like an innocent man. If we're going to keep you both out of trouble, we need to work on your story a bit. It will unavoidably have holes in it, but we can hope that your and Bill's reputation will keep people from digging too deeply."

"Jimmy, Bill's partner, might dig. Not sure we can avoid that."

"Can you tell him the full story?" Lex asked. "Will he believe it and keep everything to himself?"

She didn't answer right away but finally said, "I think so. Assuming Bill wakes up, he'll be able to decide that."

Her voice was breaking, and Griff hastened to say, "He'll wake up. Bill's tough, and he's got Gabriel's grace in him. He'll be fine."

"I hope so." There was still an edge of panic in her voice, but Griff could tell his words had gotten through.

They took a couple of minutes to modify her story, and she seemed certain it would work to at least keep the deputies off their case for a bit when suddenly she said, "Griff, he woke up!"

Griff and Lex exchanged relieved expressions. "That's great, Sarah," Griff said. "You think you can get him inside now?"

"My leg is feeling better. I can get him inside by myself. I think," she said.

Griff heard approaching sirens over the phone and hurriedly said, "I think we'd better end this. Call us when you've got him settled and you've dealt with the authorities."

Lex hung up, and the two men regarded each other. "She's a good one," Lex said.

"That she is," Griff agreed. "Did you figure out security?"

Lex nodded. "I did. I was just looking up something else when Sarah called." He turned the laptop around so Griff could see the Google search: "How to make holy water."

Griff nodded. "That's actually a good idea."

"Looks like there's a Wikihow article about it."

Griff shook his head. "Of course there is. What do we need?"

"Filtered water, salt and a few prayers. I suppose a crucifix wouldn’t hurt."

Griff checked the time on Lex's laptop. "Do you know where we can get a crucifix at 5 pm in Cheyenne?"

Lex shrugged. "No, but I bet Google does." He started typing and within moments had the address of Cornerstone Christian Supply. "They are open until 7. Plenty of time."

"Let's give Sarah a few more minutes," Griff said. "She might need us again."

Lex nodded. "I'm sure we can get the salt there too. Filtered water is easy enough to get at a grocery store."

"Who knew holy water was so easy to make? Doesn't seem right somehow."

They waited for a few minutes. Right about the time Lex was starting to look twitchy, his phone beeped a Face Time request from Sarah's iPad.

Griff was impressed by how well he handled the fingerprints and Jimmy's objections. It wasn't long before they hung up, agreeing to reconvene in the morning.

"We'd better get going to get the supplies," Griff said as soon as Lex hung up.

"Yeah. We've got just a little over an hour before they close."

They made it with less than 30 minutes to spare, picking up a crucifix and salt from the Christian supply store and the filtered water from a nearby Walmart Supercenter. Then they headed back to the hotel, and, with a few difficulties—Lex had a hard time with all the religious symbology, and Griff ended up taking over, after teasing Lex mercilessly for still being an atheist after everything he'd seen—they had several water bottles full of holy water.

Lex hefted one. "It just looks like normal water. I sure hope this works."

Griff was holding on of the bottles, and he could feel a slight tingle through the plastic. "It'll work," he assured Lex. "It's the real deal."

"How can you tell?"

Griff shrugged. "I can feel it. Guess I'm just more sensitive. I was the one who hallucinated a Catholic priest, after all."

"Fine. You use the stuff then if we need to. It might work better for you."

"Maybe." Griff wasn't sure. He thought the idea was that holy water worked against demons because it was consecrated, not because of who threw it. But he made sure to pack his backpack with three bottles. He hoped they wouldn't need it. He and demons just did not get along well.

They both napped for a few hours until Lex's phone alarm went off. They checked their backpacks. Griff had borrowed one of Bill's pistols. They didn't expect it to work on demons, but he just felt practically naked if he didn't have one.

Griff drove while Lex did hacker things on his laptop. Griff was happy to leave him to it. Computers were okay for email and stuff, but he never went deeper than that with them.

At this hour, the streets were still and silent. Some of the taller buildings were lit, but most of the light came from lamps along the side of the road and street lights. There was a light fog covering everything, and visibility was limited, adding ghostly halos to street lamps.

Anxiety prickled at him, getting worse the longer they drove. He hadn't noticed it earlier. It was as if something had changed once the sun had vanished. His nose wrinkled, as if at a bad odor, but he couldn't actually smell anything. The grace within his chest grew hotter, leaving him with a sense that  _ something _ was going to happen.

"What's wrong?" Lex asked, looking up from his laptop.

Griff shook his head. "I don’t know. I sort of feel like something's going to happen. All my senses went on alert." His eyes scanned the streets around him. He fancied he saw a miasma of evil threading through the fog. Suddenly, he thought he knew what he was sensing.

"There are a lot of demons in this city. I think I'm sensing their presence. Where they've been. Maybe even where they are going to be."

He could just see Lex narrow his eyes and start paying attention out the window. "I think I feel what you're talking about. Sort of a prickle like someone's watching you, even though there's nothing there?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Griff said. He was having a hard time forcing himself to continue driving. Now that he thought he knew what he was feeling, he really wanted to drive to the airport and stay in well-lit areas until they could catch a flight back to Jericho. Being in a car at night didn't seem nearly safe enough.

Lex's hand landed on his shoulder. "It's okay. We know to stay sharp."

True enough. And Griff knew they needed to do this. Jericho and Bill were counting on them. Plus any other place the demons might be targeting. He didn't think for a minute that their plans stopped at one small Kansas town.

"Gabriel picked you," Lex said.

Griff shook his head. "No, Gabriel picked  _ you _ to come save my ass."

"He said this wouldn't work without both of us. So, yeah, he picked you too."

Griff rolled his shoulders, trying to relax them. He had this. It wasn't that different from the plenty of times he'd gone after bad guys. Okay, those bad guys had gone down when you shot them, but still. They had holy water. He checked for his backpack in the back seat. Yes. It was there. He could do this.

They pulled up to the building, and Griff had no trouble finding street parking. No meters in sight, so it was probably free. He reminded himself that at this time of night, it was probably free even if there were meters.

Lex carefully stowed his laptop in the back seat, under his jacket. It was thin cover, but Griff thought it would suffice in the dark. The hacker messed with his phone for a minute. He'd said something about setting up some apps with stuff to get them out of trouble if needed. Griff left him to it. He focused on the grace in his chest, trying to sense if there were any demons in the immediate vicinity. After a moment, he gave up. He didn’t think there were, but he wasn't sure he was doing it right. He figured if he broke out in a cold sweat and starting feeling sick, he'd know there was a demon nearby.

"You ready?" Lex asked, putting his phone in his shirt pocket.

"I guess so."

"Think there are any demons nearby?"

Griff shrugged. "That's what I was trying to figure out, but I don't know if I was doing it right. It's not like they trained us in demon sensing at the FBI Academy."

Lex chuckled. "Yeah, they didn't offer that one at Langley either."

They shared companionable, if nervous, grins and got out of the car. Griff shoved his borrowed pistol into the back of his waistband. He knew it was a terrible place to carry it but he'd forgotten to ask Bill for a holster. How could he have forgotten something so basic?"

"Griff?" came Lex's quiet voice next to him. "We might not want to stand too long on the sidewalk. This late at night, that might draw police attention."

He was right. Griff nodded, and they started walking for the building.

When they got to the door, Lex pulled out his phone and swiped and tapped for a moment. Griff heard a  _ click _ . Lex smiled and opened the door. No alarms went off. He hoped they hadn't tripped a silent one.

Lex must have noticed his expression because he scowled and said, "This is what I do, you know?"

Griff lowered his eyes. "Yeah. I know. Just nervous is all." He cleared his throat and added. "Where are we going anyway?"

Lex moved into the building and motioned Griff past him. He closed the door and did something with his phone again. "There. The alarm is set again and the door is locked, in case Security checks."

"Won't that slow us down if we need to leave in a hurry?"

"I can open it again with a single swipe."

Griff hoped Lex wouldn't lose his phone.

"And as to where we're going," Lex said, moving quickly across the lobby to the bank of elevators, standing as silent sentinels overlooking the slick tile floor. "Based on the schematics I pulled, there are two possibilities for a secured server room. One might be a SCIF, but it was hard to tell."

Griff nodded as he glanced around the lobby, all chrome and marble with a huge glass chandelier above the reception desk. He'd heard of SCIFs—pronounced "skiff"—Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities, where people could meet without electronic surveillance. "So we have to check them both out?"

"Unless we luck out with the first one. Which is on the fifth floor. Come on."

Lex walked up to the bank of elevators but instead of pushing the button, he did something on his phone. One of the elevator doors opened, and he motioned Griff in. They both stepped in, and Griff noticed the keycard reader under the control panel. He thought Lex must be controlling the elevator from his phone to bypass the keycard floor restrictions.

He watched the numbers as the car rose. It stopped at 5, and they stepped out. His senses were on high alert, and he caught himself trying to look in every direction at once. He didn’t  _ think _ there were demons nearby, but he still wasn't sure he knew how to tell until one was right on top of them.

He followed Lex, who was moving confidently, obviously knowing where he was going. This floor appeared to be mostly offices. Was that where they'd have a secure server room? He wasn’t sure. This wasn't his area. He'd mostly worked on gang cases and the odd kidnapping.

Lex stopped at a door, did something with his phone and reached out to open it. He poked his head inside and shook his head. “That’s the SCIF. It must be the other one.”

Griff followed him back to the elevator, and they rode to the 8 th floor. Back down the hallway to another door. Another bit of cell phone magic, and Lex opened it. “This must be it.” He sounded satisfied.

They both entered the room, and Griff closed the door. It was barely large enough for the two of them and two banks of desks containing five computers. There were also two battered desk chairs. Clearly the people with money didn’t work here.

Lex sat down at one of the computers, stretched his fingers like a pianist about to perform, and started working. First he inserted a flash drive into the computer.

“Sloppy,” he said, his tone reproving. “They are overconfident because these aren’t connected to the Internet. Even so, they should have disabled the USB ports.”

“Not everyone is you,” Griff reminded him.

“True enough, which is good. This would be harder otherwise.”

Griff was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to be able to load something from a flash drive without logging in first, but apparently that didn’t apply when you were Lex. A few minutes later, the hacker was logged in and starting his search.

“What are you looking for?” Griff asked. “Surely it’s not so simple as searching for ‘nuclear bomb set off locations?’”

Lex grinned as he typed. “You’d be surprised. I’ve seen really stupid stuff like that before. But right now I’m searching for Jericho. It seems like the town is at the center of things, so I thought I would start there.”

Griff watched him type for a few minutes, but it was about as boring as watching grass grow, so he sat in the other chair, which was as uncomfortable as it looked, and examined the room. Unfortunately, he didn’t see anything. He almost wished he had a phone of his own to play with. He played the sort of mental games he’d used to stay alert on stakeouts, but he was still bored.

Just before he was about to get up and go walk around to stretch his legs, he heard a gasp and “Shit! No way!” from Lex.

He whirled. Lex had rolled back several feet from the terminal. His face was chalk white, and his eyes were wide. Griff looked at the screen and saw a picture of a man. There didn’t seem to be anything special about him. Certainly nothing to elicit such an extreme reaction from Lex.

“What is it?” he asked. “Who is he?”

“He’s supposed to be dead,” Lex said, his voice shaking.


	18. Chapter 18

Sarah woke up to the sound of the iPad ringing. She'd left it on her bedside table. It was handy for browsing before bed. She blinked at the clock. 5 am. It was Sunday, Bill's day off, or they would have already been awake. Bill was starting to move beside her. "What is it, babe?" he asked.

"It must be Lex," she said. "No one else would know to call the iPad." She reached out accepted the call. It wasn't Lex. It was Griff.

"What's wrong?" she asked. "What did you find?"

Griff spoke quickly but urgently. His face held exactly the same expression as Bill's when he was worried. "Lex found the details of the attacks."

Sarah caught the plural instantly. From the way he gripped her leg, she knew Bill had heard it as well. "Attacks? Plural?"

Griff nodded. "Yes. Twenty-five in all, it looks like. The nearest one to Jericho is going to be Denver."

"Oh, no!" Sarah said, thinking of some people she knew there.

"Where else?" Bill asked.

"The usual suspects," Griff answered. "D.C., New York, Los Angeles. But that's not why we're calling. Lex and I are going to be on a plane back to D.C. in a few hours. We think we know how to stop it."

"How?" Bill asked.

"We need to find a guy," was all Griff would say. "That's not important to you right now. What  _ is _ important is the fact that you probably have less than twenty-four hours before the hordes of Hell, literally, land on your doorstep."

"What?" both Sarah and Bill said at once.

"There are a lot of demons in Cheyenne, and many of them are going to be coming your way in just a little while. You see, the special thing about Jericho is that it's one of the few places near to Cheyenne that isn't going to be affected by fallout. Lex found a map. Jericho is this little clear pocket in the middle of potential destruction. It looks like the demons are planning to use it as a launching point for the rest of their plan. You see, as devastating as nuclear bombs are, only twenty-five won't destroy the entire country. They are intended to soften it up for the rest of the plan, which is to establish a new, United States of Nothing That Looks Like America."

Sarah could hear the capitals in his voice. Also, the thought of "only" and "twenty-five nuclear bombs" in the same sentence was off-putting.

Griff was continuing. "A few of the bombs are already in motion, but Lex has an idea of how to take care of them. The rest are leaving from D.C. in the wee hours of tomorrow morning, and we're going to stop them. But the demons don’t know that, and the plan calls for them to converge on Jericho, probably in the equally wee hours of your morning."

Sarah was surprised to hear Griff discussing demons so calmly, and she wondered exactly what had happened in Cheyenne.

"You want us to stop them?" Bill asked.

Griff nodded. "Either that or get out of Dodge, but you don't strike me as a runner, Bill."

"I’m not."

"Then you have a little less than a day to organize a defense of Jericho."

"How many demons are we talking about?" Sarah asked.

"Our best guess? Maybe twenty?" Griff answered.

Twenty? If they were humans, this would be laughable. But they weren't human. Instead, they were twenty demons who would be unaffected by gunfire and most anything humans could throw at them Sarah wasn't sure how to even begin to plan a defense against that.

A notification popped up on the iPad. "That's the recipe for holy water," Griff said.

To Sarah's shock, Bill started laughing.

"Bill!" Sarah squeaked. "This isn't funny."

He patted her leg. "Actually, babe. It kind of it. Because I know how to do it."

Sarah was glad he did because she still had no idea.

Griff was nodding. "Good to hear it. We'd both prefer to come back to a Jericho that is controlled by humans."

Bill was nodding. "You two stop the bombs. We've got Jericho."

"Okay. We're getting on a plane in a couple of hours. We'll call you when we get to D.C. and after we've implemented step one of the plan. If you need anything we can provide from a distance, you've got it."

"Thanks, Griff. You two take care of yourself."

"Will do. You two as well."

He ended the call, and Sarah turned to Bill. "Babe? What are you thinking?"

He shook his head. "I've got the beginning of an idea, but we need to go talk to Mayor Green. We're going to need the whole town behind this, and our first challenge is going to be convincing him that demons are real.

Sarah hoped he had an idea of how to do that. Because she was coming up blank on that front too.


	19. Chapter 19

APPROXIMATELY ONE HOUR EARLIER

Lex stared at the computer screen in shock. It wasn't possible. He was dead. More importantly, he was from his universe. Alive or dead, he wasn't supposed to be in this one at all.

Griff was gripping his shoulder and speaking to him. It was a moment before Lex's brain could focus enough to make out what he was saying.

"Lex? What's wrong? Who is that? You said he's supposed to be dead."

Lex shook himself, trying to get his brain working again. The man on the screen looked so innocuous. Past middle age. Bald head. Round face that somehow also appeared angular. Hard, determined eyes.

Quinn.

But Quinn had died five years earlier in his universe. A heart attack, which had surprised exactly no one. How was he here and apparently in charge of this entire operation. Was he a demon too?

"Lex?"

Right. Griff.

Lex moved his tongue around his mouth, trying to work up enough moisture to speak. "His name is Quinn, at least that's his name in my universe. He used to be the Director of the CIA. Then he was a temporary director between appointees. He'd wanted to be Director again, but the President had different ideas. We all thought we'd be rid of him, but then he got himself assigned to be a liaison between the CIA and Homeland Security. He had a little unit of operatives, and I was one of them, when he needed us for jobs." Lex shook his head. "He was one of the most amoral people I've ever known. Others called him evil, and I see where they were coming from, but he didn't have enough passion to be evil. All he cared about was the reputation of the CIA, and he'd do anything to maintain that. No matter who got hurt."

Griff shrugged. "I don't know. That kind of sounds evil to me."

Lex shook his head. "Not exactly. He'd do exactly the right, just thing one day and then the next turn around and lie to anyone and everyone, if it got him what he thought was right for the Agency. That's why I called him amoral."

"All right. I'm not going to argue semantics with you. But you said he was dead."

"Yeah. Five years ago. Heart attack. I'm not going to lie. There were quiet celebrations at his passing." He motioned to the screen. "But there he is."

"Maybe he's like us," Griff suggested. "Not an angelic vessel, certainly, but something else. Maybe there are other common people across universes and he's one of them?"

Lex's brain suddenly kicked in. That made a lot of sense. He leaned forward and started typing. Within moments, he had a partial history of Valente. It looked solid, although the backgrounds Lex created looked solid too. He didn't have enough time to poke holes in it. For the moment, he'd accept the guy was who he appeared to be.

"Yeah. He's got a different background. No CIA history at all. He's been meddling in politics, just in different areas. He's on the Board of several of the companies I've been researching. I recognize the name now."

"And he's behind this somehow?" Griff asked.

"Far as I can tell, he  _ is _ this thing. It was his idea, and he's put all the pieces in place. The idea is to bomb enough metropolitan areas to destabilize the country, and then it gets put back together, but the way he wants it."

"With him leading it?"

Lex shook his head. "No, that's the interesting thing, and how he's different from Quinn. He doesn't seem to want to be in charge. He's got someone else handpicked to be the new President. He's going to be the power behind the throne."

"Nice guy," Griff commented.

"Yeah, but for our purposes, this makes it easier. If we take him out, this snake loses its head. Take him out, and stopping this becomes a lot easier."

"Where is he?"

"D.C., apparently. Half of the bombs are already in motion. Those are the ones headed farthest west. The other half leave D.C. tomorrow evening."

Griff looked like he was considering for a moment. "So we fly to D.C., take out this Valente dude and stop the other bombs from leaving. That takes care of half of them. What about the other ones?"

"You're making this sound a lot easier than it’s going to be." Lex was not at all happy about that "plane flight" part of the plan, but sometimes sacrifices need to be made.

"I'm going to notify law enforcement about the bombs and where they are being delivered. I can make it look official enough that they'll take enough notice to at least investigate."

"That works."

Suddenly, Griff straightened and his skin broke out into a cold sweat. "Oh no," he said, alarmed at how broken his voice sounded.

"Demons?" Lex asked.

Griff nodded.

"How close?"

Griff shook his head, trying to keep his wits about him. He tried twice before he could produce intelligible words. "Couple floors away, maybe?"

Lex quickly dragged and dropped a few more folders onto the flash drive and then pulled it from the port. He then copied something from the drive back to the computer and clicked it to run. Griff had no idea what it was but assumed it was a hacker thing. "Got what we need,” Lex said. “Let's go."

Griff tried to move, but his legs were locked in place. His vision tunneled, and he was afraid he was going to pass out. He was vaguely aware of Lex moving nearby, and the next thing he knew, something cool was on his forehead, and his thoughts cleared enough that he was able to move. "What did you just do?" he asked.

"Anointed you with holy water," Lex said, motioning to where he was holding one of the water bottles. "Did it work?"

Griff considered for a moment. "I think it helped." He frowned. "But I think you only anoint with holy oil."

Lex shrugged and stuffed the water bottle and flash drive into his backpack. "I'm an atheist. Sue me."

Griff "listened" with whatever sense he might use to sense demons, although he still had no idea how he did it. He thought he knew where they were, but he wasn't certain.

"Know where they are?" Lex asked.

"I think so." He concentrated harder, as if that would make a difference? "They are coming closer and from below. I'm pretty sure of that."

"Stairs or elevator?"

"I'm not even sure how to tell that," he protested.

Lex rolled his eyes. "Are they coming relatively fast in a straight line or more slowly with some back and forthing?"

Well now that Lex put it that way… Griff concentrated again. "Elevator. I'm pretty sure of that."

Lex got a positively maniacal gleam in his eyes. "Well, that's good. Come on."

The hacker shouldered his backpack, and Griff picked his up and followed. They got out of the office and double-timed it down the hallway, Lex's head bent over his phone. Griff wondered how he managed to walk a straight line while doing that, but his steps never faltered.

They got to the bank of elevators, and Griff checked the numbers. There were four elevators and all of them were coming up. "Uh, Lex. They're flocking this way."

Lex's head whipped around. "Was that really a Jurassic Park reference? We're about to be attacked by demons, and you think that was a good idea?"

Griff shrugged. "I'm going to either laugh or cry. But why are they all coming up?"

Lex did something else on his phone. "Stairwell. Now. They are coming up because we are about to go down."

Oh. That actually made sense. Griff hurried for the stairwell and started down, Lex following close behind. They dashed down, Griff taking two steps at a time, Lex taking them one a time but moving fast, occasionally glancing down at his phone. "We need to move faster."

Griff did his best, but he worried that moving faster down stairs would lead to him moving  _ really _ fast and, assuming they survived the demons, he preferred walking out of here under his own power.

They got to the second floor and Griff stopped suddenly, unable to move. His heart started racing, and his vision tunneled.

Lex barreled into him. "Griff? What?"

Griff swallowed, his mouth dry, and he tried to speak, couldn’t get the words out, tried again and managed, "Demon. Below us. Probably waiting just outside the stairwell door."

Lex considered for a moment and then put an arm around Griff's waist. The angle was awkward because of the narrowness of the stairs, but he managed it. Griff closed his eyes briefly, appreciating the grounding contact. "Okay," Lex said. "We can do this. Get out a bottle of holy water. They are squeeze bottles. Not much range, but you can still aim from a bit of distance."

Griff liked that Lex was trying to put a positive spin on it, but even a squeeze bottle couldn't spray much more than a foot or two. That was very close to a demon.

"I'll open the door," Lex continued, speaking quietly to not echo in the stairwell. "And spray the hell out of whatever I can see. You run for the door. Blast it on the way by if you can. Hold the door open for me, and we'll run for the car and get the hell out of here." He checked his phone, tapped something and nodded. "That will keep them tied up in the elevator long enough for us to get away."

Unspoken between them was  _ I hope _ but Griff appreciated it. His grace burned within him and the spot on his forehead where Lex had spread holy water felt cool and reassuring. He could do this. He would not let Lex down. The hacker had risked himself getting Griff out of the mental hospital. It was time for Griff to return the favor. Just one demon, damn it. They could do this.

He nodded and reached in his backpack for one of the bottles of holy water. "Okay," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Let's do this."

Lex gave him an encouraging smile, and he reached into his own pack for a bottle of water. The descended the last few stairs, the door looming in front of them like the very Gates of Hell. In a way, Griff thought the imagery oddly appropriate. Finally, they were there. Lex reached out for the panic bar on the door. Griff had to swallow back a mad giggle. "Panic" bar was the right word to describe it.

Lex gave him a questioning look. Griff surprised himself by giving a quick nod back. The hacker pushed open the door as fast as he could and darted through as soon as there was enough room for his body. Even though Griff had said he was ready, it took him a second or two before he caught up and started moving.

As he was halfway through the door and almost able to see the lobby ahead, he heard a scream. He knew it wasn't Lex. There was an inhuman quality to the scream that almost froze Griff in place. Stubbornly, he told his legs to keep moving. He heard another scream. That one was Lex.

He moved faster, emerging into the lobby to see he had been wrong. There wasn't just one demon. There were two. One was holding his smoking face in his hands. That must have been the one Lex had hit. The other had Lex by the throat and was in the middle of picking him up to throw him.

Griff skidded to a stop next to Lex and the demon. Without conscious thought, his hand came up, and he sprayed a stream of water into the demon's face. It interrupted his throw just enough that Lex only flew a few feet and slid to a stop on the floor. The demon screamed. Griff stood his ground and sprayed him again, wishing they had thought to buy squirt guns. A couple of Super Soakers would have been ideal right about now. Hell, even a squirt bottle would be better than what they had now.

He hit the demon again, and, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lex struggling to his feet. "Run, Lex," Griff yelled.

The first demon was recovering now, and Griff turned to spray it. The demon was too far away, and he missed it. The demon, incongruously wearing the body of what looked like a suited sales executive, smiled and stepped forward, clearly not feeling threatened at all. Griff backed away toward Lex. It wasn't difficult to look frightened since he was terrified out of his wits.

His plan, such as it was, worked. He stumbled back into Lex, who reached around behind him and sprayed the demon right in the face. The demon screamed and stumbled back, smoke rising from his contorted features.

"Run for the door, Griff!"

Griff darted around Lex and ran for the door, hands outstretched to crash open the door. Instead he crashed into the glass and bounced backwards, almost falling from the force of his momentum.

"Damn!" he said when he recovered his balance.

He turned to see Lex battling two demons at once. Sales Executive demon was still off balance from the last blast of holy water, but he was recovering. The second demon—young body, jean, t-shirt and cropped blond hair—was reaching out to grab Lex, probably to toss him across the room or rip him limb from limb. Griff still wasn't clear on exactly what demons did.

Lex tried to spray Jeans demon, but his bottle had run dry. Griff's legs locked again and refused to move, but he reminded himself again what Lex had done for him and managed to take two steps forward. That drew the attention of Sales Executive, who left Lex to his buddy and advanced on Griff.

He knew it wouldn't hurt the demon, but he hoped to buy them a moment for Lex to do his phone magic to open the door. He reached behind him into the waistband of his pants and pulled out the gun.

The demon grinned at him.

_ Yeah, you bastard, I know.  _ Griff thought. _ Bullets won’t work on you. Good thing I'm not planning on shooting you. _

He aimed at the ceiling and fired the entire magazine into the huge chandelier he'd noticed earlier. Both demons and Lex winced at the sound of the gunfire. That bought Griff just enough time to run forward, grab Lex and pull him toward the door, right before the shards of glass and metal hit the floor and the demons.

The demons hit the floor, covering their faces with their hands, just as Griff had hoped. He knew the glass couldn't permanently harm them, but he hoped they still had enough human instinct to react to falling glass and debris. Apparently, he'd been right.

As they hurried for the door, Lex snatched his phone out of his shirt pocket and did something, just before crashing through the door in the way Griff had intended earlier. They rushed down the street to the car, which Griff opened from the key fob in his pocket. They piled in, and Griff started the car and raced away, barely before Lex had even closed his door.

Lex kept looking behind them as they hurtled down the street, Griff recklessly driving 50 through the deserted city streets. After they had driven several blocks, Lex said, "I think we got away."

Griff glanced into the rear view mirror. The streets were clear, and he slowed down to a more reasonable speed. "Good thing you trapped most of them in the elevators. What did you do, anyway?"

Lex gave a low chuckle. "Programmed the doors not to open unless someone used the fire key and locked them on the top floor. They'll be able to get out, but it should take a while, depending on how quickly they think to call the fire department."

Griff smiled, appreciating the humor but not recovered enough for an actual laugh yet. "That's good."

"Uh, sorry about forgetting to unlock the front door,' Lex said, his tone sheepish.

"Yeah. I want to go on record as having told you about that when we went in."

"You did. You're right. I hadn't expected to run into that much trouble. Oh, and we need to buy water guns."

"I thought of that already. We'll pick some up in D.C. Hopefully, we won’t run into any demons on the plane."

"We need to call Bill and Sarah when we get to the hotel."

Griff nodded. "Good idea. Fill them in on what we found and why we're going to D.C."

Lex shook his head. "Yeah, that, but more than that. Jericho is about to be ground zero for demons, and they need to know about that." Lex filled Griff in on the bombs and the plan for Jericho to be a fallout free zone.

When he finished, Griff said, "Okay. You get us a couple of seats on a plane to D.C. How about first class again, while you're at it?"

Lex grinned, the expression still shaky but starting to regain its usual snark. "I think I can manage that. So you'll call Sarah while I do that?"

Griff let his eyes travel to the clock on the dash. 3:30 here. So 4:30 there. By the time they got back to the hotel, it'd be almost 5. Early, but they'd want to hear about it as early as possible. "I can do that."

Lex had pulled out his laptop and, from what Griff could see out of the corner of his eye, was checking flights.

Griff drove. Back to D.C. to stop a demonic plot? With nuclear bombs? This wasn't what he thought he'd signed up for when the joined the FBI.


	20. Chapter 20

Bill sat on the bed for a few minutes, sorting through what Griff had just told them and fleshing out his beginnings of an idea.

"What are you thinking, babe?" Sarah asked, gently putting a hand on his arm.

"Assuming Griff is right, and we have no reason to think he isn't, we've got about twenty demons about to attack Jericho. What do we have that works against demons?"

"Salt and," nodding at the iPad she still held, "holy water."

"Exactly. This is Jericho. We have more salt than we'd ever need."

She nodded. "Right. But what about the holy water?"

He smiled. "Well, we've got pools on the east side of town, and there is always the water tower."

He was gratified to see her gasp. He was smart enough, but his wife was so quick, and he always mentally patted himself on the back when he was able to get something quicker than she did.

"You want to consecrate all the water in the pools and water tower? Is that even possible?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Which is one of the reasons we need to talk to the Mayor." He pointed to the iPad. "Lex may have sent the recipe for holy water, but I'm thinking a priest or pastor's blessing will be even more effective. We need all of them working together."

"We don’t just need to tell the priests and Mayor Green," Sara said. "We need the entire town behind this, but I still don't think it will work. Holy water and salt may hurt them, but they won't kill demons. We've seen that ourselves with the salt, and Lex mentioned in his note accompanying the recipe that holy water hurts them badly but doesn't kill them."

Bill had thought of all that but was still confident his plan would work. "I know, babe, but here's the thing. I don't think we need to kill them. I mean, we don't know a lot about demons, sure, but what little I do know indicates they are tough, hard to kill and mean as fuck. But I don’t remember seeing anything that says they are particularly brave."

Her eyes lit up. "You want to drive them off. Organize the whole town against them and make it so hard that they give up and move off."

"Exactly. If Griff and Lex can make their part of the plan work and we can let the demons know the bombs have been neutralized, they might just give up."

"They'll still be out there," she reminded him.

"I know, and yes, that's a problem, but it doesn't have to be our problem. Not right now."

She was nodding as he spoke. "I think you're right. They might come up with some other grand plot, but now that we know demons exist, we should be able to come up with some way to…I don’t know…get advanced warning? Or something?"

"We ask Lex to send all the relevant information to the authorities, maybe. Let the CIA keep an eye open for demon sightings."

"So now all we have to do is convince Mayor Green that demons exist. What’s your plan for that?"

He grinned and leaned over to give her a quick kiss. "I'm going to call Jimmy so he can back us up."

"He'll kill you, calling so early on his day off," Sarah warned.

"He'll have to catch me first. I'm faster than he is."

"True," she said, with a smile.

Bill picked up his flip phone, reminding himself to ask Lex about what to look for in a good smartphone. He was almost convinced it was time to upgrade.

Jimmy answered after several rings and said, "What the fuck, Bill? Do you know what time it is? It's our day off!"

"I know, Jimmy, but we've got a problem."

"Nothing is bad enough for you to call me before dawn on Sunday."

"What about twenty odd demons showing up in the next twenty-four hours?"

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Bill waited it out.

"You're shitting me," Jimmy finally said.

"Nope," was Bill's response.

"Twenty? I mean, how? There was only one yesterday."

"I can explain when you get over here. We have to let Mayor Green know so we can organize town defense."

"That's gonna be fast talking, even for you, Bill."

"I know. That's why I need you with me. With you, me and Sarah, he's got to at least give us a listen."

Another long pause. "All right. I'll go with you. But it's still too darned early."

"According to Lex and Griff, we have less than a day. I don't want to waste any of it."

A shorter pause. "Let me get dressed, and I'll be over. But Sarah'd better have breakfast for me."

Bill smiled, sure now that he had his partner's support. "I think that can be arranged. Bacon and eggs okay?"

"It's a start," Jimmy said, his tone still grumpy.

"Maybe if I ask nice, she'll add pancakes."

Sarah was smiling and nodding as he said it.

"She'd better!" he said and hung up.

"He's in but demanding a full breakfast," Bill said to his wife, who was climbing out of bed.

"Guess I'd better get to cooking then," she said as she started to get dressed.

***

Jimmy took longer to arrive than they had expected, and Bill had been about to call him right as he showed up. He didn't explain his delay, but he did down his breakfast rapidly. Sarah knew it was later than Bill had intended, but they were able to start for the Green's by almost 7:00. 

When they arrived at the house, Bill had taken several deep breaths before knocking.

Gail Green answered the door, her pleasant middle-aged face looking concerned. "Bill, Jimmy and Sarah? What brings you here this morning?"

"Sorry to stop by so early, ma'am," Bill said. "But we need to speak to the Mayor, if he's available. It's urgent."

She gave him a quizzical look but shrugged and turned back into the house. "Johnston! A couple of deputies here to speak with you. They say it's urgent." She turned back to them. "He should be down in a moment. He was getting ready to leave. Come on in."

She offered them coffee and tea, and had just brought out the cups when Johnston Green came down the stairs. The tall, balding man was dressed in his usual working wear of sensible trousers and a button down shirt. He gave them the same quizzical look as his wife had. "Jimmy, Bill, Sarah? What's so urgent?"

Sarah noticed his glance stopped on her for an extra second. Obviously he was wondering what brought one deputy wife but not the other.

Gail handed her husband a travel mug, presumably full of coffee, and then she started for the stairs, obviously intending to give them privacy. Bill held up a hand. "If you don't mind, ma'am. Please stay. I think you should hear this too."

She nodded and came back to sit down beside her husband on the couch. Sarah and the other two men took chairs. Bill fiddled with his cup of coffee for a moment before saying, "I know this will be difficult to believe, sir, but the town is about to be attacked."

Johnston's brows drew together. "Attacked? By whom?"

Sarah decided to spare her husband from having to tell the Mayor, and she spoke up. "By demons, sir."

Johnston's brows were now so close it was difficult to see between them. The expression was heading away from puzzlement and coming dangerously close to anger. "Demons? You expect me to believe…"

"It's true, sir," Jimmy added at the same time Bill nodded.

"All three of you are sticking to this ridiculous story? Did my son put you up to this?"

Jimmy pulled out his phone and handed it over. Sarah couldn't see much of the screen, but she saw enough to see a photo on the display. Johnston took it and gave it a quick glance before asking, "What is this?"

"I stopped by the department to take it before going to Bill's. It's the body of a man killed last night."

Sarah could have cheered. That was what had delayed Jimmy. It was an excellent move and might go a long way to convincing the mayor.

Johnston looked at it again, more closely this time. "Last night, son? This body looks as if it's been dead for days, a week maybe."

The Mayor hunted frequently and was familiar with the stages of decay.

"I can confirm the man was killed last night," Jimmy said. "As to why it looks the way, it does? Bill and Sarah can answer that better than I can."

Gail was leaning over her husband's shoulder to take a look at the picture. Johnston didn’t attempt to hide it from her, gruesome though it was. Gail Green was a strong woman and could handle it.

The Mayor met Bill's eyes. "I'm not saying I'm going to believe you, but you and Jimmy are good deputies, not prone to pranks or foolishness. I'll give you a listen."

Bill nodded and laid out what had happened the last few days. He covered finding Griff and Lex along with the first demon attack. Sarah took over for the trip to D.C. Bill picked the story back up with the warehouse, guns, Hazmat suits and Geiger counters. Sarah finished by telling them what Griff had said last night and what the two other men were planning.

Johnston and Gail sat quietly through the entire story, saying nothing. Sarah had never noticed how excellent their poker faces were. She couldn't tell what they were thinking or how they were reacting to the story.

"That's quite a story," Johnston finally said, after looking to be lost in thought for several minutes. "Gail, what do you think?"

She shook her head. "If it were almost anyone else, I'd be inclined to say it was a prank. However, Bill and Jimmy are two of Jericho's most solid deputies, and…well there was something odd I saw about a week ago."

Gail was suddenly the center of everyone's attention.

"What was that?" Johnston asked.

"I was driving back to the hospital, just near dusk. And there were movers outside the old Thompson place. But no one has moved in yet."

Johnston frowned. "That isn't much, dear."

Sarah noticed that the "dear" managed to not sound patronizing, an accomplishment under the circumstances.

"I know," Gail continued. She looked down at the floor, and a flush rose in her face. "Well…I might have stopped by a day or two ago and glanced in the windows. There aren't any shades or blinds, so I was able to see in the living room pretty well." She turned to face Sarah. "You'll understand what I mean by this. Some of what I saw didn't go together. There were boxes marked "TOYS" so I assume it's a family. But the couch, loveseat and chairs didn't go together." She shot an apologetic look to the men.

Sarah thought she saw where the other woman was going. "It's like a man bought individual pieces without worrying about a theme for the room. Not like a wife had done it."

Gail nodded. "Exactly. And all the furniture was new. If it had been used, I'd have thought they were young and were using hand me down furniture, but I don’t know many women who would have bought those particular pieces to go together in the same room."

Johnston frowned and rubbed his chin. "Thin, but you're saying with the other things, you're inclined to believe the story?"

"I think so. I mean, obviously I didn't say anything about the furniture the other day. I did think it was odd but not so odd to say anything about. But the weapons, odd body and the house? I can't speak to the demons, but the house could be a base of operations."

Sarah was barely breathing, and she noticed Bill and Jimmy also sitting as if they didn't want to be noticed. Gail and Johnston were coming around to the idea on their own, and none of them wanted to interrupt.

Johnston rubbed his chin a few more times and seemed to come to a decision. "All right. I'm not completely convinced, and I do want to see this weapon cache you discovered. But let's say, for the sake of argument, that you are correct and that Jericho is about to be overrun with demons."

Sarah allowed herself to breathe normally again, and both Jimmy and Bill relaxed in their chairs.

"So what's your plan, son? I assume you have one?" His tone made it obvious that if Bill didn't have a plan, he was on the verge of losing what little consideration the Mayor was giving him.

Bill leaned forward. "I do. It's rough, and I was hoping you'd be willing to help us flesh it out, but the rough outline is something like this. As far as we know, there are only two weapons we have against demons. Holy water and salt."

A faint smile crossed Johnston's face. "Salt we have in plenty."

Bill nodded. "Exactly. And with the water tower and the pools on the east side of town, we have a lot of water, assuming we can get it all blessed."

Johnston nodded. "And you want me to speak to the town's various pastors and get them to cooperate with this crazy plan?"

"Pretty much, sir. I was thinking if we planned it right, we could use salt and holy water from the pools, fire trucks, and water guns to herd them into position and then open up the water tower to basically drown them in holy water. We can’t kill them, but I think we can drive them off and convince them that Jericho is too tough to take."

"If Lex can do his part," Sarah added, "We can let them know their leaders and the plan has been neutralized."

"There are an awful lot of 'ifs' in there," Johnston said.

"True," Bill said. "And I'm open to refinements of the idea. But I do know we need to do something. I doubted Griff and Lex at first, but we've fought two demons now."

Sarah suddenly had an idea. "We might be able to do more than drive them off. We might be able to exorcise them en masse."

Now she found herself the center of attention, and she had to clear her throat for a second before continuing. "I still like the idea, Bill, of driving them where we want with salt and holy water. Disorienting them with the water tower is solid. Then when we have them off balance, we drive them again, this time into a giant circle made of salt. Then we bring up the fire trucks and their loudspeakers and play the  _ Ritual Romana _ through them while they are trapped."

Bill's eyes widened, and a smile spread across his face while she spoke. Her normally stoic husband shocked everyone by lunging out of his seat to catch her in a huge hug, and he kissed her full on the lips, right there in front of the Mayor and his wife.

Gail and Johnston were looking pleased but confused. Jimmy blushed and turned to face the window.

Bill let go of Sarah, still grinning. "That will work, sir," he said, not even attempting to apologize for his behavior. "It will take some precision timing and pre-planning to set it up, but the demons shouldn't be expecting it."

"And this exorcism will drive them off?" Johnston asked.

"Yes, sir. That's what we did with the one by the car."

"Will they come back?" Gail asked.

Bill's eyes unfocused for a moment in thought. Finally, he said, "They could, probably, but I don't think they will. Nothing in Scripture indicates demons are terribly brave. My original idea was to convince them Jericho was too tough to take on. I was hoping to drive them off with salt and holy water, but if we demonstrate that we know how to exorcise them, I think they will stay away."

_ Until their next plan _ , Sarah thought but didn’t say. Maybe when Gabriel opened up the portal to bring Griff and Lex back, they could ask him for ideas to keep Jericho safe. Until then, this was the best they had.

Gail and Johnston looked at each other. Sarah recognized it as the silent communication between a couple who had been married a long time. She and Bill didn't have it yet, but she thought they would get there in time.

There was a long pause, but Johnston finally nodded. "All right. You say we have less than 24 hours?"

"That's what Griff said, and I have no reason to doubt him," Bill answered.

"In that case, I have a lot of talking to do. Let me gather the relevant people. All the ministers, Gray Anderson—" He frowned when he said that name, and Sarah understood why. The arrogant owner of the salt mine would undoubtedly use this as an excuse to get something unreasonable in return. Because saving his own life and the town was clearly not going to be enough. "And Sheriff Dawes, of course."

Bill gave an audible gulp at the mention of his boss, but he didn't say anything.

"Once they are on board, I'll talk to everyone at the clinic," Gail said. "They'll need to be ready for injuries. I can't imagine we will get through this unscathed."

Johnston nodded. "Unlikely, so that's good. I'll also want to talk to the Fire Department and let them know we'll need their trucks."

Sarah sat back in her chair, satisfied. There were a lot of details to work out, but she was satisfied the Greens were on board. As long as they were behind it, things would happen.

Now she just hoped Lex and Griff would be able to do their part.


	21. Chapter 21

Lex hated flying. He knew all the statistics and that it was safer to fly than to drive a car. Considering he also rode a motorcycle, logically, he had to admit flying was definitely safer than that. But when you drove yourself, you had control. When flying, you gave up everything into the hands of another. And that was the problem. Lex hated doing that. If it made him a control freak, so be it.

Stiles had told him if he just kept doing it, he'd get used to it. Lex never did, though, any more than he'd gotten used to Stiles being dead.

And  _ that _ was enough of morbid thoughts for the day. He went back to his work. Flights from Cheyenne to D.C. sucked. The earliest they could get in was 10 at night, which gave them basically no time to work. But they had just enough time to drive to Denver after they checked out to make a 6:30 Southwest flight that got in to BWI at 11:55. Time differences sucked. Southwest also sucked to Lex because they didn't have a first class or a business class. So he arranged for three tickets in Business Select, which got them the entire side of the plane to themselves plus early boarding. It was totally not worth it if he'd been using his own money. Good thing a U.S. government that wasn't his own was footing the bill.

Griff was asleep in the aisle seat. Lex was still worried about him. He'd handled the demons well, but it had wiped him out. He'd almost passed out when they'd gotten to the hotel, and Lex had basically had to sleep walk him through security. Griff had roused just enough to take off his shoes and go through the scanner. Lex had needed to keep track of their bags. How would he fare in D.C., where Lex was certain they'd need to deal with more of them?

However, there were other things to worry about now. Like stopping the bombs already in motion. Lex had set up their three tray tables into a portable office. It was probably just as well Griff was asleep. He might have objected to sharing his stupidly limited space with Lex's portable laminator. Damn lack of First Class! These seats were tight. Luckily he and Griff were smallish for guys.

One of the flight attendants walked by just then, giving his set-up a puzzled look. Lex ignored her and hoped she wouldn't ask him to put anything away. According to the flight tracker he had going in one corner of his laptop, they were still two hours from landing. Plenty of time to finish everything.

But first, knowing it was a bad idea, but not able to help himself, he set up a Twitter account to bitch about the flight, seats, lack of First Class and the current President, just to be thorough. Ten irritated tweets later, he was able to focus on the tasks he was supposed to be doing.

He typed furiously, sending official looking reports to the various law enforcement agencies where the bombs were headed. He'd set himself up as a high-level functionary in the Department of Homeland Security, which had "noticed" suspicious activity and was "advising law enforcement about the possibility of a local terror operation." In a moment of whimsy, he’d decided his name was Alexander Quinn. Lex had downloaded all the particulars about the trucks and drivers from the isolated server, and he had hacked all the relevant priority codes to make sure people paid attention to the reports. It wasn't ideal, but it was the best he could do on short notice.

Once again, he missed Stiles so badly that it physically hurt. That guy could get stuff done and, more importantly, make sure other people got stuff done. This would be so much easier if they had him here.

Once he'd sent off reports about the trucks on the move, it was time to set everything up to deal with the trucks that hadn't left yet. Here was where Griff was going to come in handy. Lex put the finishing touches on a fake ID for his companion. He'd given him a position just two steps down from the Directorate of Intelligence. Checking to make sure no one was watching him—the annoying attendant from earlier was elsewhere—he held the badge up to the light. He nodded. Terri would have approved. He reached over the middle seat, where he'd set up the portable printer, to run the ID through the laminator.

The sound of the little machine woke up Griff. "Huh?" he said as he raised his head, looking blearily around them. "How long was I out?"

"Not too long. We've been in the air just a bit over an hour." He picked up the ID by the edges—it was still hot.

"What's that?" Griff asked.

"Your new ID," Lex said. He put the ID down on the middle table and started moving things so he could get to his bag. The laptop went on the middle seat with is empty coffee cup perched precariously on top of it. Since it was empty, Lex didn't worry much if it fell over. He put up his tray table and finally was able to get to his bag.

Griff watched the live Tetris with a bemused expression.

Lex dug down in the bottom of his bag and found what he was looking for. Anticipating he might need it, he had packed it just before he and Griff left for this universe. He pulled it out, put the ID in the compartment and handed it to Griff with a pleased smile and a small flourish. "There."

Griff took it and blinked at it for a moment before opening the small leather case to see the ID and shiny FBI badge. "What's this?" He held the ID close to his face, obviously still having difficulties focusing. "Holy shit, Lex. This is way too high up the ladder. I can't be  _ that. _ "

Lex reached out and put a hand on Griff's shoulder. "Sure you can. If you can imitate an IRS agent, you can do anything. And," his voice turned shy. "I sort of hoped you'd like having a badge again. Even if it is fake."

Griff reached over the middle seat, laptop and all—the coffee cup toppled to the floor—and managed an awkward hug. "I love that part." His eyes glistened suspiciously. "I didn’t think I'd ever have one again."

Smiling, Lex hugged him back as well as the conditions allowed. "I got you, buddy."

Griff let go of him and sat back in his own seat, picking up the dropped cup as he did. He put it beside the portable printer. "So what's the plan?”

“I’ve sent alerts to law enforcement in the places where the bombs in motion are headed. I wish I could do more, but we can only be in one place at a time.”

“Who’d you send them as?”

Lex gave him a grin. “Homeland Security.” 

Griff smiled back. “Ah. The agency that guy Quinn worked for. You enjoyed that too much didn’t you?”

“Pretty much. I used his name.”

Griff chuckled at that before asking, “So in D. C. we’re going to deal with Valente and the other bombs, right?”

Lex nodded. “Yes, here’s the schedule. You were pretty out of it at the airport so I didn’t bother to run it past you.”

“Yeah. Sorry about that.”

Lex waved off the apology. “It’s okay, man. That was a lot of demons in a short period of time.”

“I know. But I just wish I knew  _ why _ they bothered me so much.”

“It’s your grace, man. Gabriel said it would help me detect supernatural creatures.” He frowned. “Not that it’s been a bit of use that way so far.”

Griff nodded. “I know. That’s why I think it’s something else.” He shrugged. “But I guess the  _ how _ doesn’t matter as much as that it does. So, schedule.”

“Right,” Lex was setting up his laptop again so he could get back to work as soon as he finished briefing Griff. “So, we get in about noon at BWI.” He scowled. “That’s why we’re on crappy Southwest.” He did remember to lower his voice when he said it.

Griff frowned. “What’s wrong with Southwest? I liked them in my universe.”

Lex motioned at their seats. “No First Class.”

“Okay.” Griff didn’t sound too bothered by it. “Not like I got to fly First Class much for my job anyway.”

Lex didn’t admit that neither had he. He was enjoying spending other people’s money. “Anyway, BWI at noon. That leaves us about eight hours until the second batch of trucks roll. I’ve tracked down where Valente will be this afternoon. At least I think I have. I’m hoping we have time to take him out of the picture before we stop the trucks. If we are really lucky, we can get him to call the whole thing off, and we won’t need to worry about them.”

“How likely is that, do you think?”

Lex shrugged. “Not very. But we can hope, right?”

“Right.” Griff paused before adding, “When you say take Valente out of the picture, what did you have in mind, exactly?”

Lex had been sort of hoping Griff wouldn’t ask that. Because he really wanted to just shoot the bastard. Yes, he was projecting his hatred of Quinn on Valente, but it didn’t seem too much out of place, considering the plot they were trying to foil.

“Lex?”

“Yeah, Griff. I heard you.” He sighed. “We don’t know if he’s a demon or not. If he is, we try to exorcise him and see what the real Valente is like.”

“And if he’s not?” Griff’s voice was firm, and Lex got what he was really asking.

“I don’t know, Griff. I mean, this is one bad dude, right?”

“Right,” Griff agreed. “Which still does not mean we get to be judge, jury and executioner.”

Lex sighed again. “You’re right.”

“You must have really hated that Quinn guy.”

“You have no idea.” Lex considered for a minute. Griff remained silent, but Lex could sense he was waiting for the  _ right _ answer to the question of what to do with Valente. Finally, he said, “All right. We call in the authorities. But please, may I strip search him and leave him tied up in nothing but his underwear?”

Griff laughed, and Lex heard the relief in it. “All right. I can go along with that.”

Lex nodded. He’d live with it.

“So, assuming Valente can’t call off the other bombs, what’s your plan to deal with that?” Griff asked.

“That’s where you and your shiny new ID come in.”

Griff raised a questioning eyebrow at him. “How so?”

“I was planning to send an priority notification to the D.C. Regional Office, letting them know about a terrorist plot right under their noses.”

“Oh, that will go over well,” Griff noted.

“Probably not, but they won’t be able to ignore it either. They will be told to report to you. I’ll create a lower-level ID for me and be your...assistant or something.”

Griff got an alarmed look on his face. “You can’t. I mean...they know me in D.C. This will never work!”

Lex reached over the middle seat to put a steadying hand on Griff’s shoulder. “Relax. This isn’t your universe, remember? They don’t know you here. I did a very good job on your ID. They’ll believe it.”

Griff blinked and relaxed. “Oh. Right. I forgot for a second.”

Lex gave him a sheepish smile. “Don’t feel bad. I forgot for a moment too. Was trying to search out who in D.C. might have worked with you. When I couldn’t find anyone, I remembered where we were.”

Griff gave him a grateful smile. Lex smiled back. Okay, it wasn’t really true. He hadn’t forgotten. Well, okay, he had. But only for a minute or so. Not as long as he’d just told Griff. But the other man needed a boost now, and Lex would give it to him.

“Okay then. I guess that works. Still, I hope we can head it all off with Valente. I’ve always been a field agent. I don’t know if I can play the part.”

Lex winked at him. “Sure you can. Was there that one superior you loathed?”

“Sure,” Griff said, obviously not getting where Lex was going with this.

“Just act like him. The agents will hate you too, but they’ll do what you say. And they’ll be so busy hating you that they won’t notice any inconsistencies.”

Griff’s gaze was unfocused for a moment, but when it cleared, he look a lot happier. “I think that will work.”

“Of course it will.” He turned back to his laptop. “Now let me work. I need to finish up my own ID before we land.”

Griff nodded. “You go ahead. I think I’m going to nap until then.” He settled back in his seat and closed his eyes.

As far as Lex could tell, he was asleep immediately. That couldn’t be good.

But he had work to do, so worrying about Griff was going to have to wait until later. Probably much later. They had a lot to do and a very short time in which to do it.


	22. Chapter 22

Once Johnston Green made up his mind to do something, things happened quickly. Sarah found herself at the clinic with Gail, advising them on what to expect.

April, the clinic doctor, took it in stride, but everyone else had questions, most of them revolving around “demons are real?” and “how do we not die?”

At one point three nurses were freaking out in the clinic hallway, and Sarah had had enough. “Stop!” she found herself saying, her voice just shy of a shout. To her surprise, all three of them did stop and turned to look at her, eyes wide and frightened.

She hadn’t quite expected that level of focus. “All right,” she said, buying herself a second or two to decide on what to say. “If all goes well, the demons won’t even get here. You’re more likely to deal with injuries than actual fighting.”

“But what can we do if it doesn’t go well?’ April asked from the doorway to her office.

That was a fair question, and Sarah thought quickly. “One thing we know is that demons can’t cross salt lines.” At least she  _ hoped _ they knew that. Lex had found that in his research, but they hadn’t had an opportunity to test it. “So what we’ll do is get someone to bring us a bunch of salt.” Fortunately, Gray Anderson had seen sense and was providing as much salt as was needed, at no cost. Sarah was pretty sure he’d change his mind later, but they were taking advantage of it while they could. “And we’ll pour salt lines at all the doors and windows. That should keep the demons out.”

“I may be able to offer some additional help,” came a soft voice from behind her. Sarah turned to see the town’s only Catholic priest standing behind her. Thinking quickly, she managed to recall his name. Father Eyler. As always when in public, he had on his priest’s collar, and his black clothing fit well on a man who stayed fit and ran several marathons each year.

“We’ll take anything,” she said.

He nodded. “Mayor Green sent me to bless as much water as I could. If someone could point me in the direction of the backup tank?”

“Sarah, do you know where it is?” April asked. “I need to organize things here.”

Sarah nodded and motioned the priest to follow her. “It’s this way.”

As they walked, Father Eyler said, “Quite the fuss. I understand we have you and your husband to thank for it.” His tone was mild, and Sarah wasn’t sure how to read it.

“And I didn’t mean anything ill by that,” he added before Sarah could say anything. “All things considered, I’d rather we have warning.”

“Sounds like you weren’t a hard sell on the existence of demons.”

He chuckled and touched the crucifix around his neck. “Unlike some of my other brothers in faith, my church still teaches about demons and how to exorcise them.”

“So are we doing the right things, Father?” Sarah asked, glad to have someone with as much or more expertise than herself.

“Salt and holy water? Plus a recorded exorcism? I can’t speak to the latter, but the first two are sound.”

They arrived at the clinic’s backup water tank, and, between the two of them, they managed to figure out how to open it to reveal several hundred gallons of water, cool and placid. The priest took his crucifix in hand, dropped in a handful of salt and spoke something in Latin over the water. Then he stood back and said, “There. That should do it.”

Sarah didn’t have a reason to doubt him, but it all seemed too easy, and she wished there were a way to test it. Without summoning an actual demon.

“From your frown, I’m going to assume you are doubting the holiness of the water?” he asked, sounding amused.

She shook her head. “I believe you blessed it, Father. But will it work against demons?”

He dipped a hand in and brought out a small amount in his palm. “Yes, it’s blessed properly,” he said simply.

“But how can you be sure?”

His blue eyes twinkled at her. “Because this isn’t my first rodeo, Mrs. Koehler. It’s no accident that I’m a priest. I come from a long line of psychics, and I have a touch of the Sight.” He dipped a finger in the water on his palm and reached out to anoint her forehead with it. It only felt wet to her, but somehow she believed him. “There. A demon will hesitate now to touch you. The protection won’t last more than a few hours, but from what Mayor Green said, I suspect that will be long enough.”

He gave her an enigmatic smile and turned to go. “I believe I am blessing several swimming pools next. Good luck Mrs. Koehler and may the Lord be with you today.”

Sarah wasn’t sure what to think about him. She’d never met him formally, only seen him at a distance, but suddenly she was glad he was in Jericho.

She wasn’t quite sure what to do next, but before she had more than a moment to wonder, Jimmy came hurrying up, arms full of water guns.

In spite of the tense situation, she smiled at the sight. “How much did you have to pay the kids to give those up?”

He grinned back at her. “These? I didn’t get these from kids.” He handed one over, and Sarah noticed that it looked a lot more high tech than what she remembered from her childhood. “These all belonged to adults,” he finished.

She handed it back. “Demons better watch out. That one looks like it has range.”

He nodded. “That one’ll go almost 40 feet.”

Her eyes widened and she reached to take it back. “I want that one.”

He let her have it. “Go ahead. Bill wanted you to have one. Which reminds me. He’s looking for you.”

“Everything all right?”

“As far as I know. He’s at the station.”

She nodded. “Thanks, Jimmy. I’ll go find him.” She started off but not without first making sure to fill the gun. She was sure she was going to need it before the day was up.

She hurried to the station, wondering what Bill wanted her for. Perhaps he had another group he wanted her to brief. When she found him, he was talking to a couple of the deputies. Well, “talking” was the nice way of putting it. Haranguing was probably a better description.

“Yes, Riley, I am serious. Demons. The Sheriff already told you to report to me and go where I asked you to. So I need you and Salem to drive out to the west edge of town and keep an eye out for anything suspicious.”

“Like a cloud of sulfur?” Salem asked.

She knew her husband well enough to know he was barely restraining an eyeroll. “Well, yes, that would be suspicious. But I’m thinking probably a caravan of cars or maybe a bus.”

Sarah stepped forward. “Perhaps setting up a roadblock? Maybe we had an overturned truck close to town?”

Riley gave her a look which suspiciously resembled respect.

Bill nodded. “That’s a good idea, babe. See if someone will let you roll their truck so it looks authentic.”

Salem was still grumbling as they headed off, but Riley was almost looking thoughtful.

“What’s up, hon?” she asked.

Bill put a hand in the small of her back and hurried her into the Sheriff’s office. Dawes wasn’t there, and Bill closed the door behind them.

Now she was starting to get worried.

He glanced around. No one was paying them attention.

“Babe?”

He positioned himself so no could see their faces, presumably so they couldn’t be lip read. “I had an awful thought just a little bit ago.”

“What?”

“We’ve dealt with two demons, but what if they aren’t the only ones? What if there are more in town? What if they are in some of the people we’ve been planning with?”

That was an awful thought, and Sarah was surprised and a little ashamed she hadn’t thought of it before. She started thinking. “Maybe we can eliminate some people?”

He nodded. “I did think of that. I think the Greens are clear.”

Sarah thought for a moment and decided she agreed. “I think you’re right. If it had been them, they’d have fought harder.”

“I had the same thought. And I can’t believe Jimmy is a demon.”

Sarah heard the pain in her husband’s voice. She understood. She did. Bill couldn’t contemplate something like that happening to his partner. Fortunately, she was sure he was right. “Jimmy’s the one who came through with the picture of the demon body. I’m sure that’s a lot of what convinced the Greens. He never would have done that if he’d been a demon.”

Bill nodded, looking relieved. “I thought so, but I was afraid I was wanting it badly enough that I was missing something.”

“I think you’re good.”

She suddenly hoped it wasn’t Father Eyler. She didn’t  _ think _ so, but then, if he were a demon, that’s what he’d want her to think, right?

“But it could be anyone else, just about.”

Sarah had to concede that he was right. Could demons inhabit anyone? Or just certain people? Did they have to be evil first? She couldn’t imagine anyone in Jericho being evil. She also supposed that demons could be anyone. Possession sounded like it was something you didn’t  _ want _ to happen.

“I think you’re right. It could be. And it or they could be influencing our plans.”

“Right. That’s why I’m so worried. I mean, I had to send Riley and Salem out to keep watch, but what if one or both of them is a demon?”

She put a hand on his arm. If he kept on like this, he’d work himself into a full blown panic attack. “Relax. We’ll deal with it when and if it happens. You’re thinking about it, and so am I. I’ll keep an eye on things. I know the basic plan. I’ll keep moving through town, and if something seems wrong, I’ll let you know.”

Bill took several deep breaths and nodded. “All right. You’re right. We can be on guard now, and that’s about all we can do.”

She nodded. “Okay. I’ll start my walk around and keep you posted.”

“Good.” He glanced out at the ready room. “And I’ve got more people to assign to tasks.”

He opened the door and went out, already barking out instructions.

Sarah left the station, trying to talk herself out of the thought she’d just had.

Bill didn’t have any grace anymore. Could a demon possess him? Had one already done it? Was her husband still her husband?


	23. Chapter 23

Griff liked Lex. He really did. And he was determined to keep reminding himself of that fact. Perhaps at least once per minute.

He had avoided more of the rant against the lack of First Class by sleeping through the rest of the flight. Unfortunately, as soon as they landed, he had little choice but to wake up and listen to Lex’s animated and very vocal opinions about everything from how BWI was on the list of 15 worst American airports this year--Griff wasn’t sure why because everything seemed fine to him--to the car they ended up renting, which led to what Griff thought was their first real fight.

“No, Lex, I’m quite sure that FBI agents don’t rent sports cars. As you may recall I  _ was an agent for almost a decade. _ ”

“But the Ford Taurus is a terrible car! We could do so much better.”

“If you can find something better in an American brand sedan, go for it. But, no, you may not rent a BMW.” Griff hadn’t even been aware you could rent a BMW from an airport rental agency, but apparently things worked differently in this universe.

He wasn’t sure later how he’d managed it, but Lex huffed and rented the Taurus, which seemed perfectly fine to Griff.

They had a brief disagreement about who would drive, but apparently Lex was in the mood to completely wallow in his unhappiness, and he drove. And complained for the first twenty miles about how the seats were uncomfortable, the climate control system sucked, and he was sure that, even though the car was supposed to be non-smoking, he could still smell smoke.

Griff finally tested out what Lex had suggested and channelled his most hated boss, combined with his boot camp drill sergeant and yelled pretty much non-stop for several minutes.

The car was blissfully silent for the next twenty miles.

Finally, Lex said, in a very small voice, “Yes. I think that works. Do that and you’ll be fine this evening.”

Griff took it as the apology it was probably intended to be and asked, “So what’s the exact plan? You said Valente would be in Reston about now?”

Lex nodded and got into the lane for the Dulles Toll Road. He handed his phone to Griff. “Hold that just under the rear view mirror, will you?”

Griff did so, angling his head so he could see what app was running. “Really, Lex? You know you’re not going to be here long enough to get the ticket for a toll violation, right?”

Lex grinned at him, and Griff was grateful to see him in a better mood. “It’s the principle of the thing.”

They went through the toll station, and the light obediently turned green. As soon as they were through, Griff handed the phone back to Lex. “What address did you put down for the rental car anyway?”

“Valente’s home address, of course. I hacked it on the flight over. I’d considered trashing the car and leaving it in a ditch somewhere, but that wasn’t fair to the rental company.”

Griff was glad his partner had a few scruples left. He took out the badge Lex had made for him and tried to look as if he was examining it for accuracy. What he was actually doing was appreciating something he’d never thought he’d have again. Sure, it was fake, but he didn’t care. It was a badge, and it was his.

“It look okay?” Lex asked. Griff would have expected him to be irritated at having his work questioned, but the hacker sounded genuinely curious.

“Yes. It’s good.” He paused and added, “I wasn’t actually looking at it critically. I was just--”

“Making sure it was right,” Lex said firmly, but with a smile.

Yes, they understood each other.

“So, you think you can get us past the gatekeeper?” Griff asked.

“Of course.” He motioned to his backpack in the rear seat. “I’ve created a letter authorizing us to investigate him for insider trading.”

Griff laughed. “He’s about to set off nuclear bombs in America, and you’re going the insider trading angle?”

Lex shrugged and changed lanes for their exit. “Hold the phone back up again, will you?”

Griff did so, and as soon as they were through, Lex pulled up to a light. “We don’t want him to know why we’re really there, and you said you’d done RICO cases before. I figured you’d know how to talk your way past receptionists and the like if I kept it in your wheelhouse.”

Griff had to admit that was a good idea. “Okay, I assume you’re also going to want me to try to feel out if there are any demons in the place.”

“Of course. Then once we get in to see him, I’ll lay out what we’ve learned and see where it goes from there. Oh, and I’ve scheduled another alert to go to the D.C. District FBI office about domestic terrorism being plotted by him.” He glanced at the dashboard clock. “It will go out in about an hour. The information I’m sending them is real. It’s what I got from the servers in Cheyenne.”

“They’ll never be able to use it to make a case against him, you know.”

Lex nodded and pulled into a parking garage. “I know. But it will give your colleagues a place to start. They’ll be able to make the case on their own.”

Griff thought he was probably right. “That works. So an hour. Long enough for him to stew in his underwear.”

Lex grinned as he parked the car. “Pretty much. Also, not so long that people should go looking for him. We want your guys to find him. Not his own people.”

“It’s unlikely the timing will work out quite that smoothly.”

“True, but a hacker can hope, right?”

“And maybe set off a convenient fire alarm if needed.”

Lex tipped an imaginary hat. “Worked with you and Sarah, didn’t it?”

“That it did.” He got out of the car and examined himself in the side mirror. He straightened his suit just a bit.

“You look good.” Lex picked up a briefcase he’d picked up in a shop at BWI. “The documents are in here.” He held onto it, as was appropriate for a low level functionary.

“All right. Let’s do this.”

Lex clapped him on the shoulder. “You got this.”

Griff nodded back to him, working on the fine touches of his character. Hard-nosed senior FBI executive. Yeah, he could do this.

***

Yes, Lex hated flying. And yes, it put him in a terrible mood, but he had exaggerated it just a bit for Griff. He was worried about the man and hoped that focusing his attention on Lex being annoying would distract him from his own issues.

It had worked, basically. Although he figured he’d gone a bit too far when Griff had gone full on drill sergeant on him. That had been something to witness, and he’d needed to take a few mental notes on curses he’d never heard before. Griff had ones Stiles had never used.

They walked into the building, Lex remaining a step or two behind Griff, like a good subordinate. The office they wanted was on the 9th floor, and this building didn’t have security in the lobby, so they were able to get on the elevator without being stopped. Much different from the last building they had invaded together.

Which bothered Lex.

“Considering who he is supposed to be, shouldn’t this have been a secured building?” Griff asked.

Okay, the other man felt the same way.

“You’d think so. I’d noticed the lack of security when I hacked this place on the flight.”

Griff winced at the open admission, and Lex added, “There are cameras in here, but no audio. I made sure I wasn’t facing it, on the off chance they had someone who could read lips viewing it.” Really, Griff should trust him on that sort of thing by now. Maybe he really had overdone the grumpy!Lex act.

“So what does it mean, do you think?” Griff asked.

Lex considered. He  had given that some thought on the flight. “Either Valente isn’t who we think he is--and I hope that’s not the case--or they aren’t too worried about security. Meaning there probably isn’t much sensitive here.”

“Except for Valente.”

“Except for Valente,” Lex agreed.

“Not feeling any demons, by the way.”

Lex felt a mixture of relief and apprehension. Relief that they might get out of here with less of a fight than the last time. Apprehension that Valente was looking less and less like the mastermind they’d been thinking he was.

The doors opened just then, and they stepped out into a lush executive office. Lots of leather and fine wood grain furniture. This was more what he had been expecting to find and was hopeful he hadn’t completely mis-read Valente’s position.

A pretty receptionist with a very low cut blouse greeted them. Lex reminded himself that he’d long passed the age where a nice rack could distract him. However, he couldn’t stop himself from sneaking what he hoped were discreet peeks at her chest.

Griff apparently was immune or had long practice in resisting tempting scenery. He led with his badge, completely comfortable with the motion. “Ma’am. I’m Supervisory Agent Griff Krenshaw. I’m here to see Mr. Valente.”

The woman wasn’t intimidated even slightly by the badge. “Do you have an appointment?”

“I’m afraid not, but I believe he’ll want to see us.” He motioned peremptorily for Lex, who stepped up, smoothly withdrawing the letter he had forged a few hours ago. Griff took it and handed it to the receptionist, who read it briefly. Discouragingly, her expression didn’t change from professional disinterest.

“I’ll see if he’s available,” she said and picked up one of the phone handsets on her desk. “Two FBI agents to see you, sir. They have a letter.” She still sounded bored. A moment later, she said, “Very good, sir. I’ll let them know.”

She put down the phone and motioned them to the seats in the lobby area. “Mr. Valente will be with you in a moment.”

This was not going the way Lex had expected. He waited to see what Griff would do.

His partner smiled, but it wasn’t a very nice smile. “I’m afraid that won’t do. My office has sent me here to interview Mr. Valente, and I will not be kept waiting.” He didn’t raise his voice, but Lex still had to suppress a shiver at the cold, determined tone of voice. Many unpleasant outcomes were implied by his words and voice. He shifted position so he could look at Griff’s face, and he was surprised at how cold the man’s amber eyes could appear.

The receptionist wasn’t as immune as she’d like to be. Her large brown eyes widened, and Lex noticed goosebumps rising on her arms.

Griff knew when to press his advantage. “I suggest you call your boss back and suggest quite strongly to him that it would be to his advantage to see us now.”

A quiet, familiar voice spoke from behind Lex, and he had to suppress his urge to jump. “That won’t be necessary,  _ Agent _ Krenshaw.”

Lex had no doubt the emphasis on the title meant the man knew it was fake.

Lex forced himself to turn slowly. The face matched the voice, and he faced a demon from his past. Oh, he knew logically that it wasn’t Quinn, but his emotions weren’t so sanguine about it. A part of him wanted to run. Another to punch him in his arrogant face. While a third part wanted to confess everything he’d been doing since he came to Bill and Sarah’s universe.

Before Lex could do anything unwise, Griff turned his back on the receptionist to face the man. “Mr. Thomas Valente, I presume?”

The man was barely taller than Griff, but he had a commanding presence about him and stood to his full height in an obvious attempt to intimidate. Griff gave him a pitying smile and stood his ground without flinching. Lex had to admire him. This was not the Griff he had broken out of the mental hospital. Also, from his partner’s attitude, Lex was certain Valente was not a demon. Which was too bad. He’d been kind of looking forward to being able to exorcise him. He’d made a point of memorizing the ritual just for that.

Griff and Valente stared at each other for a long moment. Finally, Valente smiled, the expression small and barely conceding anything, but he did say, “All right. Why don’t the two of you come back to my office? We can talk there.”

Griff inclined his head in what struck Lex as a regal acceptance and motioned Valente to proceed them.

Yeah, Griff had balls.

They followed Valente into his office, and he sat behind his desk, his attitude that of a king on his throne. “So shall we dispense with the farce of FBI?” he said, his tone bored.

“Oh, he really is FBI,” Lex said, wanting to try to keep the Quinn lookalike off balance.

“Unlikely,” Valente said. “There is no mention of a Griff Krenshaw in any FBI database.”

“Sure there is,” Lex said, his tone inappropriately cheerful.

“No mention that was there two days ago.”

Griff cleared his throat. “Enough, you two. So I take it you know who we are?”

Valente nodded. “The two individuals who broke into the Cheyenne office early this morning. You do seem to get around. Might one or both of you been the ones who broke into the Jericho warehouse a few days ago?”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Griff said, neither his voice nor his expression revealing anything.

“I highly doubt that, but it’s immaterial.” He waved a languid hand. “Of course we are aware of your attempts to stop the bombs. I will grant that your efforts may succeed on the first wave, but you won’t be able to stop the second wave.” Another wave. “It may be a set back, but not enough to derail our plan.”

“Which is?” Lex asked. It worked in movies. Maybe it would work here.

“You know that only works in movies?”

Well, so much for that.

“Look,” Lex said, sensing that Griff wanted him to stop with the snark and get back to the plan. They  _ were _ running out of time. “I have enough urgent messages out to enough law enforcement agencies that you might as well call the whole thing off. We know you’re the mastermind behind this whole thing.”

Valente threw his head back in a laugh. “Is that what you think? That I am the one behind all of this? Nothing could be further from the truth.”

_ Oh shit,  _ Lex thought. There really is another layer behind this.

Valente continued, “Even if I did want to call it off, and I don’t, I couldn’t. I am...how shall we put it? The middle manager behind the plan.”

“Michael Lee,” Griff said. “He’s the one.”

Lex blinked and realized it made sense. There had been more trails leading to Michael Lee. He’d just been so distracted when Valente’s face showed up, he’d ignored everything else. Stupid of him.

That was when he realized Valente looked nervous for the first time in this meeting. “Oh, didn’t realize we’d put it together and found him, did you?” Lex said.

“It was a...possibility,” Valente said. “But we know you don’t know the location of the last group of trucks, so--” He shrugged. “Do your worst.”

Well, now things were going to get interesting, and he hoped Griff would trust him. He’d kept his hand in his pocket during this meeting, and now he tapped at an unseen icon on his phone. He’d made the icon basically the size of the entire screen so he could do this.

Now they had about five minutes. Time to stall.

Griff was giving him a neutral look, but Lex still knew what it meant.  _ What does he mean about us not knowing the location of the trucks? _

Lex allowed himself to look slightly nervous, while silently urging Griff to not mess this up. Was there any chance the grace gave them telepathy?

He shifted his feet, opened his mouth as if to speak, and closed it again, as if reconsidering what he was going to say.

Valente smiled. “Don’t try to bluff me. We have the logs of where you hacked this morning.”

Lex allowed his eyes to open as if in alarm.

“You tried but didn’t get close to those files.”

He noticed Griff also looking alarmed, but he knew his partner well enough by now to recognize the fake. He just hoped Valente didn’t recognize it for what it was. This was the most delicate part of his plan, and if it failed, there was no way they’d be able to stop the second wave of trucks.

“So instead of asking me to call it off, why don’t I ask if I can interest you in joining us?” Valente continued. “You are clearly talented and able to think on your feet.” He nodded at Lex. “From the number of computer systems you’ve broken into, your morals are clearly loose, at best.” He motioned to Griff. “You’ve got the sort of commanding presence my superiors appreciate.’ He nodded in satisfaction. “Yes, I believe I could make a case.”

This was a make or break moment for their partnership, and Lex hoped it would work right.

Griff got a thoughtful look on his face. “You don’t say? Perhaps you could elaborate? Oh, I don’t expect you to reveal the plan, but what might one get for joining?”

Lex could have kissed Griff just then. That was exactly what he was hoping Griff would say. Now if he could just keep up his side.

“No, Griff! We can’t. What about Bill and Sarah?”

Valente gave him a withering look. “Those two hicks in Jericho? I’m afraid they will be out of the picture in a few hours.”

Oh good. Lex had gotten the timeline correct. Well, not good because demon invasion of Jericho. But good on the timing. And WTF? about calling them hicks? How dare the bastard!

Griff turned to look and him and shrugged. “What of them? The woman almost got me killed.” His tone was right, but with his face turned away from Valente, his expression said  _ am I giving you what you need and how much longer do we have to keep this up? _

“Yes, I know, Griff. But not long ago you were singing her praises. What happened?”

He saw the acknowledgement of his coded message in Griff’s amber eyes, and the man turned to face Valente again. “I’m definitely interested. If Lex here is so foolish to think we have a chance at opposing you, then he deserves what he gets.”

It was at times like this that Lex wished he wore a watch. However, Valente had a clock over his desk, and he made a point of checking the time. The man noticed the direction of his gaze, and he smiled. “Oh, if you’re checking the time, I wouldn’t bother. I know all about your  _ urgent _ message to the District Office, and it doesn’t go out for another thirty minutes. While it would be amusing to see you try to stall that long, I’m afraid I haven’t got the patience.”

Just then, Lex heard a commotion in the outer office, and he smiled. “And that’s where you’ve got it wrong, Valente.”

A group of five FBI agents, in riot gear, burst into the office at that moment, and Lex thoroughly enjoyed the look of shock on Valente’s face. It almost made up for what Quinn had put him through. Almost.

“Don’t let him call anyone until tomorrow,” Lex told the agents as they gathered around Valente and started to put cuffs on him.

“And play it safe and search him thoroughly,” Griff added. “Down to the underwear. We have reason to believe he has a micro transmitter on him.”

Lex coughed suddenly in an attempt not to laugh. Griff was definitely an awesome partner.

Lex started for the door, but Griff motioned him to wait for a moment while he stood there and looked like a boss. Lex had to admit it was a good look for him. Maybe the grace was starting to work now?

Sadly, the agents couldn’t actually strip Valente down in his office, but they did wand him thoroughly, and Griff assured him the strip search would happen when they got him moved. He supposed that would have to be enough.

Finally, Lex guessed Griff thought he’d been supervisorly for long enough, and they left. At least ten other agents milled about, gathering computers and files.

As soon as they were outside and heading for the car, Griff asked, “So what was all that about? I guess I followed your lead okay?”

Lex said, “When we’re in the car. I want to make sure no one’s listening. But yes, you did exactly what I hoped you would.”

Griff smiled. “Good. I wasn’t sure I interpreted your coded message right.”

Lex unlocked the car, and they got in. He pulled out his phone, and performed a quick scan. No listening devices, and as soon as they started driving, they’d be defeating any directional microphones.

Lex turned on the car and pulled into the road. Only five hours until the trucks were ready to roll. He hoped everything was still on track.

“Lex?”

“Yeah, I just wanted to make sure no one could listen, because this is the trickiest part of the plan.”

“Want to fill me in?”

“Sure,” Lex said, heading for a hotel near where the trucks would be gathering in a few hours. He wanted a place to work on his final preparations. “The problem was the trucks. If Valente was willing and able to call things off, we were good. But I had to plan for him not cooperating.”

“Good thinking. The bad guys usually only do that in books and movies anyway.”

“Right. So, as I saw it, the biggest risk was that we’d tip off Valente or someone else that we knew the location. If that happened, they could just change locations.”

Griff was nodding. “And we’d never find the bombs then.”

“Exactly. So when I was in their server, I covered my tracks so they knew I’d been in there, but I made it look like I tried but couldn’t get that file.”

“So they knew we knew something but not the most important piece of information. But what about the stalling?”

Lex shrugged. “Okay, that was me wanting to see Valente get what was coming to him. I placed the one “alert” in a place I thought they might see it. While I was in their server, I noticed they had someone placed in the FBI and who it was. So I made sure that person would see the raid planned for a half an hour from now. But I had another one set up that was just waiting on a signal from me.”

“Which is what you did with your hand in your pocket about five minutes before they showed up?”

“You saw that?”

Griff gave him a quick smile. “Only because I’ve learned you pretty well by now.”

“Okay. Well, Valente is down. Now we stop the trucks and hope Bill and Sarah can save Jericho.”


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And some more art by [Gabriel_Is_My_Guardian_Angel89](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabriel_Is_My_Guardian_Angel89)

The call came in from Riley and Salem just before 5 pm. They had sighted a caravan of cars coming from the west. While Sarah’s idea of a roadblock had been a good one, they had blown past it as if it hadn’t been there. Bill had instructed them to not put up a fight. Two deputies against twenty demons would have just led to two dead deputies and wouldn’t have slowed the demons at all.

Bill thought the preparations had gone well. Every pool in town had been blessed in addition to the clinic backup water tank, and, of course, the main town tank. Every water gun, from high-tech Super Soakers to the most basic water pistol, had been rounded up, filled and distributed. Super Soakers had been assigned to all deputies, Mayor and Gail Green and anyone with military or hunting experience. Even Gray Anderson had one. Of course Sarah had one as well. Bill knew how she performed under pressure, and there was no way he was leaving his wife unprotected.

There hadn’t been time to load more than a few hundred shells with rock salt, but the Mayor had organized what he could, and, even after the call came in from Riley, he had them continue working, under the supervision of his son, Eric Green. Older children and less gun-capable citizens had laid down salt circles in strategic locations. Bill knew where he wanted to herd the demons, but he wanted backup plans, just in case things went badly. He hoped his grandfather was looking down on him from Heaven and approved of his planning.

After blessing three pools and the clinic water tank, Father Eyler had worked with Sarah to create a clear recording of the _Ritual Romana_. Sarah had set Dale Turner to making copies and hooking mp3 players up to the loudspeakers on several fire trucks.

Bill had walked strategic points in town, and he thought they were as ready as they were going to be. He was still terrified about the possibility of there being a demon in town, possibly possessing the body of a close friend, but that couldn’t stop their plans. Having Sarah keep watch for possible demons was the best he could do. Well, and keeping his own eye on anyone who looked suspicious.

Unfortunately, since these preparations involved unfamiliarity for almost everyone, it was difficult to tell the difference between suspicion and confusion. Bill had gotten the idea of carrying a sport bottle of holy water with him as he made his rounds. He made a point of squeezing a little bit on his hand and touching people, either in encouragement or to show them how to do some task.

He’d tested the deputies first, and they had all passed. In fact, so far everyone had come up clean, but he had touched only a small fraction of Jericho’s population, so it didn’t mean much.

Sheriff Dawes and Mayor Green had left him in charge of the planning, which surprised him. He was just a deputy, right? On the other hand, he was...not exactly enjoying it?...more getting satisfaction from it, and he thought he was doing the job well. With advice from his wife, of course. He knew he’d never have done it as well without her. As he waited for word from Riley, he’d wondered if this wasn’t like being Sheriff. Should he throw his hat in the ring when Dawes retired?

No wait! That job involved campaigning, which he knew he’d suck at. Bill failed to realize that the last twelve hours had built the beginnings of a winning campaign.

His radio crackled. “Bill. They are driving slowly, looking confused.” It was Connor reporting in from near where State 24 met S. Range Ave. “They are turning south on Range.”

Bill’s plan had hinged on confusion for the demons. He’d wanted to present the illusion of an empty town with strategically placed “accidental sightings” of volunteers to herd the demons where he wanted them: near Beulah Cemetery where the wealthy resided with all their pools. Residents waited in hiding near those pools with long hoses, ready to sow confusion among the demons.

Gray had argued for a more direct approach, herding them straight to the town center near City Hall and exorcising them immediately. Bill had stood firm, supported by Sarah, and, surprisingly, Jimmy--he’d been pleased his partner was still backing him even in the middle of craziness.

“That won’t work,” he’d said. “Don’t you think they’d be pretty suspicious if they got to Town Hall and saw a huge salt circle and a bunch of fire trucks set up with loud speakers? No, Gray, for this to work, they need to be confused and disoriented, running where we want them to run until we drop the water tower on them and give them a clear escape route right past Town Hall.”

Mayor Green had indicated his confidence in Bill’s plan, and Gray had subsided, but not without additional grumbling.

Bill had shared real reasons but not _all_ of his reasons. He couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility of one or more demon infiltrators in town. There would have been ample ways for it or them to foil a straightforward plan. Bill hoped the flexibility and confusion inherent in his plan would give them fewer opportunities to interfere.

“Send out the first runners,” Bill sent back to Connor.

“10-4,” was the curt response.

And so it began. Three young men were about to start to “flee” east down W. Cedar Street, which would hopefully start the chase toward the Cemetery.

“Runners away. Demons following, still in their cars.”

Bill smiled. With any luck, the demons would leave the safety of their cars soon. There was an ambush set at the end of Cedar Street. About ten men with rifles were ready to fire on the small caravan. Bill had told them to disable the vehicles, emphasizing their bullets _would not_ stop demons. He just hoped they would believe him. If they followed his orders, the demons would be forced out of the cars and on foot. Where holy water and salt rounds would be effective. He hoped.

Instead of sending up a prayer to God, he found himself instead praying to the Gabriel he’d never met. _Please let Lex be everything you hoped and that he’s right about holy water. Otherwise my entire town, including my wife, are about to die._

He didn’t get back an answer, but he hadn’t expected one.

Just then his cell phone rang. Frowning, he pulled it out of his pocket. “Sarah?”

“Bill!” His wife’s voice was a harsh whisper. “Eric’s a demon. He’s on a cell phone and I think he’s warning the others.” A pause, followed by “Oh shit!”

The line went dead.

Bill’s heart stopped for a moment. _Sarah!_ His wife was apparently confronting a demon, and he was on the other side of the fucking town.

_Save her, please, Gabriel. Oh please save my wife, if you can._

***

Sarah had been wandering town, ostensibly to check on preparations, but in reality to keep an eye out for the demon or demons. The more she thought about it, the more she thought Bill was right about that. Fortunately, she was reasonably certain Bill wasn’t a demon. After she’d walked away from her conversation with him, she’d remembered that he had touched her. Father Eyler had said the holy water would protect her. Assuming he was right, that meant Bill was not possessed.

A bunch of women were loading salt shells in the middle of Gracie’s store. Sarah nodded at Heather and Joanna, and got a thumbs up from her friend. A couple of teenagers, including Bonnie, were ready to run shells where they were needed. Bonnie signed _Good luck_ at her, and Sarah signed back, _Thank you._

She continued her informal patrol with a pass through the center of town and Town Hall. The salt circle was there, with several openings. Bill had tried to anticipate every possible direction they might end up driving the demons. Several townspeople crouched near the openings, waiting with bags of salt to close the circle on command.

Emily Sullivan was one of them, and she waved at Sarah as she passed. Sarah waved back. She’d never been particularly fond of the pretty blond and hoped that Roger would marry her and take her away. Sarah looked away from her in embarrassment, ashamed of her uncharitable thoughts.

As her eyes moved back to where she was going, she thought she caught sight of a tall young man out of the corner of her eye. Was that Eric Green? What was he doing? Wasn’t he supposed to be helping with loading shells? Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen him back ar Gracie’s.

She ducked behind a parked car and crept closer. Briefly, she wished she were smaller and less obvious, but Eric was intent on what he was doing and didn’t appear to have noticed her. Was he rubbing out more of the salt circle? Why would he do that? Had Bill sent instructions, and she just hadn’t heard about it?

Her brain was trying to send her a warning, and a part of her knew what it was signalling. She just couldn’t believe it at first. This was Mayor Green’s son. April’s husband. He couldn’t be a demon, could he?

As she watched, he stood up and smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile, nothing like one she had seen on his face before. He glanced around, but she didn’t think he’d seen her. He pulled a cell phone out of his phone and started to make a call. Now, the warning in her head was screaming. Bill had specifically asked people to not make calls unless it was needed for town defense. Unless Eric was reporting to Bill?

A slight breeze carried a few of his words to her. “...salt circle…”

She started to relax. He _was_ just reporting to Bill. But then she heard his next words.

“...drive you to center of town. Let them think you’re fooled…”

Oh, shit! He was in communication with the demons. She needed to warn Bill. She shoved the water pistol under her arm and fumbled in her jeans pocket for her cell phone. She had set Bill’s number as one of the ones she could call from her Lock Screen, and she hurriedly pressed his picture, one of her favorites of him with his hat and smiling with his dimples showing prominently. Today she didn’t stop to admire him like she usually did.

He answered. “Sarah?”

She spoke quickly but trying to be quiet so her words wouldn’t reach Eric. “Eric’s a demon. He’s on a cell phone and I think he’s warning the others.”

Hearing a sound behind her, she turned to see Emily approaching, a smile she could only describe as evil on her normally pretty face. “Oh, I don’t think so, Sarah.”

“Oh shit!” Sarah said as Emily knocked the phone to the ground.

Just then, she felt hands grip her from behind, and she heard Eric’s voice in her ear, a mocking parody of a lover’s whisper. “Oh, Sarah. Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to have you in my arms?” He squeezed her too tightly, leaving no room to misinterpret _exactly_ what he wanted to do with her.

A moment later, he yelped and let go. “Hey! That hurt! Why did touching you hurt?”

Emily laughed. “You are such a wimp, Eric.”

Eric shook his head. “No, you don’t get it. Touching her stung.”

Before Sarah could use their distraction to get away, Eric grabbed her again. His face screwed up in pain, and she got it. Father Eyler’s holy water. It was enough to hurt him but apparently not enough to stop him. He held her tightly.

No time to get distracted. Right now, she had to get out of this situation before Eric killed her or did worse.

“We can tie her up, gag her and throw her in the basement of Town Hall,” Emily was saying. “You can have you fun after we’ve killed most everyone.”

Eric whispered in her ear again, but she didn’t even hear what he said. She was trying to get a finger through the trigger guard of the Super Soaker. Maybe Eric didn’t know how handy she was with a gun? They hadn’t spent much time socially with the Greens because of Bill’s relatively lowly position as deputy.

Just then, she heard a voice that almost made her cry in relief. “Hey? What are you doing to Sarah?”  She looked up to see Jimmy and Johnston Green walking up behind Emily. Both had their water guns held loosely under their arms and looked puzzled.

Emily turned, a look of, to Sarah, obviously fake horror on her face. “Jimmy! Sarah’s a demon.” She pointed to the fallen cell phone. “She was trying to call the demons to warn them.”

“It’s true, “ Eric added. “I heard her and was just about to search her. I bet she has more than a water gun on her.”

Sarah was certain Jimmy would see through the lie, but, to her dismay, she saw Jimmy was obviously thinking it through. He had raised the issue of another demon a few hours earlier, in thinking that was eerily similar to Bill’s. But surely he didn’t think it was her?

Well, if he didn’t figure it out fast, it meant she had to get herself out of this. There! She just managed to get her finger through the trigger guard. Eric had loosened his grip slightly, and she twisted as fast and hard as she could. Eric stumbled, slightly off balance and let her go just enough for her to raise her gun and fire it point blank at Eric. He screamed and fell back, hands rising to cover his face which was smoking and running with blood.

Sarah started to turn to fire at Emily, but Jimmy was already soaking her with a steady stream of holy water. Johnston hesitated only a moment before similarly drenching his son. Judging Eric to be the more dangerous of the two, Sarah aimed her fire at him.

Emily was screaming and starting to run. Several other townspeople raced up just then, one with cheap water pistol and another with a shotgun. They added their firepower, and Emily suddenly threw her head back, a thick column of greasy black smoke rising to the sky. The two townspeople and Johnston stopped their shooting, eyes and mouths open in amazement. Jimmy, however, never stopped his assault, smoothly shifting his aim from Emily’s crumpling body to Eric, who was also screaming and starting to run. Sarah continued to pour holy water on him, and he turned tail and ran.

Jimmy and Sarah continued firing at him until he was out of range. She wanted to chase him but knew she wasn’t nearly fast enough to catch him. As much as she loved Jimmy, she also knew Eric was faster than the deputy.

“What do we do about him, Sarah?”

She noticed a second cell phone on the ground and nodded in satisfaction. She pointed to it, and Jimmy followed her motion. “Assuming he doesn’t have another phone, I think he’s turning tail and running. We’ll let Bill know so he can have everyone look for him, but I’m thinking he’s out of the picture for now.”

Johnston came up behind them. “My son’s a demon?” he asked, his voice sounding lost and broken.

Sarah turned to look at him and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It looks like it. I’m sorry.”

“For how long?” he asked, a father’s despair in his tone.

“No way of knowing,” she answered.

For a moment, Johnston looked as hopeless as a man could when he’d just lost his son. However, it didn’t take long for him to shake himself, resolve crossing his features. “We’ll worry about it once my town is safe.”

Sarah nodded and gave his shoulder a comforting squeeze. She needed to call Bill and let him know she was all right.

Before she could recover her dropped phone, one of the townspeople said from behind them. “Emily’s dead. And it looks like she’s been dead a while.”

Sarah, Jimmy and Johnston all turned to look. Sure enough, Emily’s features were melting into the face of a woman dead several weeks. That answered the question of how long she’d been a demon.

Johnston spoke. “Drag her body behind Town Hall. We still have Jericho to defend.”

Sarah agreed. And she had Bill to call.

***

Bill paced back and forth, wondering what had happened to his wife and conjuring up the worst possible images. Plus, Eric a demon? Eric Green? Son of the Mayor? How did that even happen?

Still no call from Sarah. He couldn’t leave his self-created “command post” near one of the salt circles, but he was seriously considering calling one of the deputies to have them go look for her. Even if that meant leaving one of the key points unmanned? No, he couldn’t do that. Could he?

Fortunately, his phone rang then. “Sarah?” He didn’t even try to keep the fear and concern from his voice.

“It’s me, babe. I’m fine.”

Relief washed through him so powerfully that his legs wobbled, and he ended up sitting on the ground. “Oh, thank Gabriel. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“You prayed to Gabriel instead of God?” His wife’s voice was filled with love and amusement.

“God doesn’t seem to be doing much,” he said, grumpy that he’d been caught out. “Gabriel seems to be the one pulling the strings now.”

“Well, hopefully we’ll get a chance to meet him after this is all over, and you can thank him in person.”

_I certainly hope not._ But all he said was, “What happened? Did you really say Eric’s a demon.”

Her voice turned sober. “Yes, I did. And Emily too. I saw Eric rubbing out a salt line, and then he called the demon caravan. I know he warned them, but I’m not sure how much he told them before Emily came up behind me and distracted him.”

Shit! His wife and _two_ demons?

“How’d you get away?”

“Jimmy.”

Bill smiled. Of course his partner had saved the day. When this was all over he owed the man a huge steak from that place in New Bern. Fuck the cost! It was worth it.

“And Mayor Green,” Sarah continued.

Bill frowned. Yeah, Jimmy was getting a steak but the Mayor had enough money to buy his own. Maybe a thank you card?

He shook himself, realizing he was letting himself get distracted by trivialities and paid attention to what Sarah was saying.

“They came up behind Emily and me. Emily had just knocked my phone out of my hand and Eric was...holding me from behind.”

Unfortunately, Bill caught that little hitch in her voice, and his imagination filled in the worst.

“I’m fine, Bill. It was just words, nothing more. He didn’t hurt me. I promise.”

Bill believed her, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to examine every inch of her once this was over.

“Anyway, I managed to pull away from Eric long enough to shoot him with holy water, and Jimmy soaked Emily. Her demon smoked out, but Eric got away. He dropped his phone, though, so that limits the amount of damage he can do.”

“Smoked out?”

There was a little pause before Sarah answered, her voice a little sheepish. “Uh, you know, when they throw their heads back and smoke comes out of their mouth?”

Oh yeah. Bill remembered that from the first demon.

“Well, ‘smoked out’ kind of describes it.”

Bill smiled, knowing his wife’s fondness for ‘noping out’ of a situation, and decided it made perfect sense she’d describe it that way. “Right, babe. So Emily’s gone.” He felt a brief pang of loss. He’d dated her for about a week in high school before it had become painfully obvious she was doing it just to get back at some slight from Jake Green. Still, she had been a pretty decent kisser.

And he was _never_ going to admit to Sarah that he’d thought that.

“And Eric’s in the wind. I’ll let all the deputies know to look out for him.”

“I don’t know if he told them about the plans at Town Hall,” Sarah said.

He’d been thinking about that. “Can anyone overhear you?”

“Jimmy’s standing next to me.”

Bill heard “Hi, Bill. She really is fine,” from a slight distance.

“Okay, you two. We may have to use the backup salt circle.” Jimmy had come to Bill a couple of hours earlier, wondering about a demon mole. Bill had been impressed with his partner’s thinking, and the two of them, plus Sarah, had decided to create one salt circle that only the three of them knew about. Now he was glad they had.

He was thinking as quickly as he could. He’d need to make some changes to drive them to the new circle, but he thought they could still do it.

Hopefully, the car ambush was still in play. Things were going to be a lot more difficult if that didn’t work out.

“If that’s the way you want to play it, Bill, we can do that,” Jimmy said, his voice still slightly distant.

“Let’s see what they do before we decide that,” Sarah said.

Bill was about to agree when he thought he heard gunfire. He immediately straightened to his full height, eyes scanning. It sounded like it was coming from the cemetery, he thought.

His radio crackled on his shoulder. “Car ambush going down, Bill.”

He relaxed slightly. That, at least, was going to plan.

“Is that the ambush?” Sarah asked, her tone managing to be both tense and hopeful at the same time.

“It is. Jimmy, can you get over there and let me know what’s happening?”

“Sure, Bill,” Jimmy said. Bill didn’t need to see him to know he was moving off.

He hated being stuck where he was. This managing a large scale operation sucked. He wanted to be in the middle of things, with just his partner and his gun to worry about. Even if it was a water gun. But he was in charge of this thing, and he needed to be where people could find him.

Which reminded him. “Sarah?”

“Yes, Bill.”

God, he loved how she said his name. Everything just seemed sharper and more intense right now.

“I need you to go to the backup salt circle and stay there.”

“Bill,” Sarah said, this time her tone a warning. Okay, he didn’t like the way she said that nearly as much.

“It’s not to keep you safe, babe.” _Well, not entirely, at least._ “I need to know that it’s secure and ready if we need it. I have to stay here, where everyone knows to find me. If I go there--”

“I know.” Sarah cut him off. “Then it’s not a secret anymore.” He heard her sigh over the phone, and his shoulders relaxed. He knew that sigh meant she’d do it. “All right. I’m on my way. But you call me if you need me somewhere else. Other than you, I’m the person who knows demons the best.”

“I will. I promise.” And as much as he hated to say it, he knew he would. He was a law enforcement officer and the grandson of a soldier. If the choice came down to his wife or the people of Jericho, he knew the decision he’d have to make.

“Love you, babe,” Sarah said, her tone letting him know she’d guessed at least some of his thoughts. “We can do this. Gabriel picked you.”

Technically, the angel had picked Lex and Griff, but Bill appreciated the sentiment. “And he got you as a bonus. You’re right. We can do this.”

He disconnected the call, squared his shoulders and prepared for the next phase of the plan.

Bill just hoped Lex and Griff were doing their part. Otherwise, there was a good possibility nothing they were doing in Jericho would matter.


	25. Chapter 25

Lex was completely silent on the drive into D.C., neither commenting on the upcoming raid or asking for any direction. He made turns mechanically and maintained a speed just at or slightly above the limit.

Griff wondered if this was another version of nervous Lex, and he thought he liked the hyper, talkative version better.

“You okay?” Griff finally asked. “It sounds like our plan is solid at this point. You’ve got agents ready to move in. I’m pretty sure I can play my part.” He’d been surprised at how much he’d enjoyed playing the overbearing boss in Valente’s office. Especially when he’d told the agent to strip search the guy. He’d seen Lex’s near laugh, and he’d been happy to give his partner that little gift.

Lex sighed, and his fingers relaxed slightly on the steering wheel. “It’s not that. If a couple of demons show up, it could be trouble, but I’m hoping we’ll have surprise on our side.”

“And a couple of Super Soakers.” He glanced into the back seat where the guns sat. They’d stopped by a Walmart on their way from Reston.

“And that,” Lex said in agreement. “No, I’m worried about Bill and Sarah.”

Griff was silent for a moment. He was worried too but had been trying not to think about them. He’d been wondering if they’d fucked up Gabriel’s plan by splitting up the vessels.

“I’m really afraid we messed everything up by leaving Bill back in Jericho by himself.”

Great. Lex was thinking the same thing. “He’s got Sarah, and she’s been pretty amazing so far.” He still got chills thinking about the casual, offhand exorcism she’d done.

“True, but they’ve never gone up against more than one demon at a time.”

Griff found himself absently rubbing his chest, where Gabriel’s grace still lay, warm and comforting. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lex making the same gesture.

“Yeah,” Lex said. “And he doesn’t have his grace anymore.”

Griff shrugged and said, “Hand me your phone.”

Lex fished it out of his shirt pocket and handed it over. “What for?”

“I’m going to call Sarah.” He looked at it and realized he had no idea how to operate it. It didn’t look like any smartphone he’d seen in his world.

“Lift it up a bit,” Lex said.

Griff did so, and the screen lit up. A little lock icon opened at the top, and a message at the bottom said  _ Swipe up to open. _ He swiped up and was looking at the phone’s home screen.

“Huh,” Lex said. “I wondered if that would work.”

“If what would work?” Griff said as he looked for some way to make a call. Wasn’t this supposed to be a  _ phone? _

“Face ID. We really do look alike. Their algorithm is pretty secure.”

“Right. Geek speak later,” Griff said with a bit of a growl. “For now how do I make a call with this thing?”

“Top right icon on the third screen,” Lex said. “Sarah’s in the address book. The only Sarah.”

Griff swiped carefully to the third screen, which was the only one not crammed completely full of icons. He tapped the one Lex had mentioned and saw Sarah Koehler near the top. Which was when he realized there were only five entries: Bill, Sarah, someone named “Joshua,” Boss and Pizza. “Dude? Really. You have five entries in your phone, one of which isn’t even a person, and two of them aren’t even in your universe?

Lex shrugged. “It’s been a bad decade.”

Bad didn’t even seem to come close. Terminally lonely seemed more likely. 

After a bit of fumbling--there were too many options; you could  _ pay _ someone by accident instead of calling them?--he managed to place a call to Sarah. He held his breath. One ring. Two. Three. Was she okay? Four. Five. Shit! Was she dead?

“Lex?” finally came Sarah’s voice. “Are you guys okay?”

“It’s Griff, actually,” he said. “Yeah, we’re fine. We just...well...we wanted to check on you.”

He could hear the smile in her voice when she said, “We’re fine. A bit of excitement earlier, but right now things are going according to Bill’s plan.”

Lex reached out, and, without looking, tapped the place on the screen that made it go into speaker mode. “Hey, Sarah.”

“Hey, Lex.”

“What excitement?” Griff asked. He didn’t like the sound of that.

“Umm. There were a couple of demons still in town. People we knew.”

“Shit! But you’re okay?”

“Yes, Lex. We’re fine. I’m heading into position now. Sorry. Can’t say more.”

Lex was shaking his head, obviously forgetting that she couldn’t see it. “No. Don’t. I don’t think anyone can listen in on this, but definitely play it safe.”

“Wish we could help,” Griff said. “But we’re thinking about you.”

“I only have a minute, but, uh, did you kill that guy?”

Griff had forgotten that’s what he’d said they were going to do. “No. I mean, we did what needed to be done, but we found another way.”

“Good,” Sarah said. “You guys stay safe. With a little luck, this’ll all be over in a few hours.”

“Yeah,” Griff said. “We will. You too. Give our love to Bill.”

“Will do.” He heard the fondness in her voice.

With that, she disconnected.

“I don’t like that bit about there being demons in people they knew,” Lex said.

“I don’t either, but there’s not much we can do about it now.”

They drove on in silence, Griff thinking that he wasn’t much better than Lex. He knew basically four people--Bill, Sarah, Lex and Gabriel--at the moment, and none of them were from his universe.

If he lost any of them, he was losing a huge part of his world.

“So, now that we know they are okay--or want us to think they’re okay--we need to focus on our piece,” Lex said.

Griff shook himself and handed the phone back. “Right. You’ve got some message going out to tell a bunch of agents to meet us where the trucks are massing?”

“Yes. There’s a warehouse in South East. We’ve got about an hour to get there, meet everyone and get in position.”

“And they think I’m in charge?”

“Yep. They’ll do what you ask.”

Griff nodded, already planning. “So what do we know about their plans?”

“They are gathering at eight for a briefing. Everyone will be getting their final location then. The trucks are supposed to be there and ready to go. They pull out and head for their destination. Somewhere in there, we stop them.”

“All right.” He wanted to see the warehouse, but he had some ideas of how he wanted to approach this. He just wasn’t sure how to get the water guns into the picture. He was pretty sure showing up with a Super Soaker under his arm was going to undermine his authority. “We going to have time to check it before everyone else gets there?”

“Not sure,” Lex said. “Our timeline is pretty tight. Would have worked better if we’d had a little more notice.”

“Says every law enforcement official ever,”

Lex laughed. “Okay. Good point.” He made a few turns, drove halfway down a street and found a parking spot.

“This it?” Griff asked.

“Yes. The agents will be gathering about two blocks away.” Lex motioned vaguely in the direction from which they had come.

“So how about if I do a quick recon and get an idea of the lay of the land?”

Lex frowned. “Not sure that’s a good idea. What if they’ve already got some people in place?”

Griff was feeling unusually restless and not sure where it was coming from. Right then, he didn’t care. He just wanted to be out doing something. A small part of his brain was trying to tell him this was a bad sign. The rest of him, including the warm grace in his chest, didn’t care. “Better to know that now than later, right?”

Lex was giving him a look that pretty well communicated  _ Are you nuts? _ But then he rubbed his chest, and Griff assumed his grace was telling him the same thing. The hacker shrugged, reached into the back for a water gun, handed it to Griff, got the other one for himself and said, “Let’s go then.”

Griff glanced at the water gun in his hand. “Inconspicuous much?”

‘I’d rather have it than not. I’ve had it with going up against demons basically unprepared.”

“All right.” He ripped the packaging off the gun and examined it, familiarizing himself with how it worked. Lex was doing the same and passed over the jug of holy water he’d created right after they bought the guns. They filled their reservoirs and got out of the car. Lex looked at his backpack with something like longing.

“Don’t think your laptop is going to help us much here, buddy,” Griff said, checking up and down the street. Having a cop show up right now would be awkward. He wasn’t sure even his badge would cut it in an explanation of why he was packing a water gun. No one appeared to be paying them any attention, and he moved quickly for the building, Lex following close behind.

As they moved, Griff did what he could to keep his senses alert for demons. Nothing so far, as far as he could tell.

Lex motioned him into a narrow almost-alley between two buildings and stopped by a door.

“Can you open it?” Griff asked, keeping watch the way they had come.

Lex was examining the lock and pulling some tools from his pocket. “I think so. Give me a minute.”

It took him a bit longer than a minute, along with a few choice words. Griff had heard most of them, but he took mental notes on the few he hadn’t. Were they in Farsi, maybe? Finally, however, Lex opened the door and put away his tools.

“Not bad.”

“Not my first rodeo,” Lex said as he pulled out his phone. Griff wondered why until he saw it light up like a flashlight.

They both moved into the warehouse, Griff trying to look and  _ feel _ in every direction. He saw several large vans parked inside, presumably ready to move in a few hours.

Other than the vans and some equipment laying around, there wasn’t anything of particular notice in the building. “What time is it?” Griff asked.

Lex checked his phone. “6:30.”

So an hour and a half before showtime. Shouldn’t there be more activity here? Maybe this recon had been a bad idea.

Which of course was when his knees started wobbling, and he started sweating. He thought maybe he’d throw up.

A demon was nearby.


	26. Chapter 26

Roberta tossed her dirty blond hair out of her face. Everything had been going according to plan. They’d made the drive to this hick town in a decent amount of time. You don’t get tickets when you move faster than the country cops and twist their necks before they can call for help.

They’d been surprised to see the streets deserted. Maybe some sort of sewing bee was going on? Wasn’t that what they did in the middle of Kansas for fun? But then Colby in the lead car had spotted a guy running, and they’d given chase, hoping he could lead them to more people.

What he’d led them into was a hail of bullets that tore up their cars. It had been startling but not really anything to worry about. Bullets couldn’t harm them. Searching this damn town on foot would be a real drag, but the Boss had made it clear. Jericho and everyone in it needed to die. Slowly and painfully. Roberta wasn’t high enough in the Boss’ favor to know why, but she was clear on what she wanted to do. Fuck up a bunch of humans. Backstab a few fellow demons on the way and move up the ladder.

Easy peasy. Gunfire wouldn’t stop her. She’d jumped out of her car and strode down the street, shrugging off bullets like they were flies. She laughed at the line of townspeople laying down a surprisingly well-coordinated field of fire. Too bad it wasn’t going to help them.

Five other demons followed her, and she stopped laughing and started smiling. This would be fun. Take their little toy guns away from them and twist a few necks. Then go find some more little humans to play with.

The humans stood their ground until the demons had gotten about halfway to them. Then they stopped firing and started retreating. A few turned and ran while the remainder moved in a more orderly fashion. She supposed they were buying time for the ones who were running. Foolish humans. It wasn’t going to make a difference.

She started up a street. Some almost decent houses here for such a small town. Nothing like where her meat suit had lived in L.A. but still, not bad. The other five demons followed her. The remaining humans turned to run.

Should she run too? It would be a bitch in high heels, but why not?

However, before she had done more than decide to move faster, a high pressure stream of water hit her, soaking her. Her first thought was “What the fuck?” Her second thought was “Fuck! Holy water!” She started screaming. Literally every inch of her body exploded in pain and greasy black smoke. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Vaguely, she heard her fellow demons screaming around her.

She was just able to see through the pain and smoke rising from her face. On each side of the street were humans with hoses, and they were spraying a steady stream of water. How had they gotten so much holy water? Had they blessed a swimming pool or something?

Two of the other demons had been lagging behind, and they were running back to where the cars had been ambushed. Because now Roberta realized it had been an ambush. They had been lured here, just for this.

The humans who had been firing guns reappeared, this time armed with huge water guns.

Fuck this! Surely there were easier ways to make it to the top.

Roberta smoked out.

***

Jimmy jogged along the streets. The gunfire had stopped. He knew what was coming next, and he hoped it would work the way Bill and Sarah thought it would. They seemed pretty confident, but Jimmy wasn’t as sure. Demons? He’d never thought he’d run into anything like that. All he’d ever wanted was to be a simple country deputy. Demons were way above his pay grade. Although, somehow it didn’t entirely surprise him that Bill was involved with something more. His partner always downplayed himself, but Jimmy knew better. Especially since Sarah had come along.

Jimmy wondered if Bill would run for sheriff someday or if he’d just end up doing this Hunting thing full time.

He got close to where the ambush had been planned and slowed down. No point in getting ambushed himself. He heard screaming and hoped it was demons, not townspeople.

He turned a corner just in time to see a demon throw her head back, greasy smoke rising into the sky, just like Emily had done. It made him shudder, just as it had when “Emily” had done it.

Jimmy carefully turned onto the street where the demons had been ambushed. He led with the water gun, wishing it was a real gun but getting that bullets were useless against demons. He just hated relying on a toy.

He needn’t have worried. The demons were milling in confusion. Most of them had smoke rising from their bodies and were still screaming. Two groups of townspeople advanced on them, most of them with water guns, a couple with shotguns and two with hoses.

The demons broke and ran, heading south, just as Bill had planned.

Jimmy pulled back before any of them could see him. When they were out of earshot, he reached for his radio. “Bill?”

“How’s it going, Jimmy?” came the immediate response.

“So far, according to the plan. The ambush worked. One demon actually smoked out already.”

“Good! They are heading in the right direction?”

“Yep. South, just like you wanted. Headed straight for the second ambush site.”

He heard Bill’s sigh of relief even over the radio. “Good. Maybe Eric didn’t mess us up too bad.”

“Maybe.” Jimmy didn’t want to dampen his partner’s enthusiasm, but he’d been in enough situations to know  _ something _ always got fucked up.

‘I know, Jimmy. That’s why we have a backup plan.”

“Right, Bill. Where do you want me now?”

“Head for the second ambush site. Let me know how that goes.”

“Okay.”

Jimmy turned and started jogging back the way he’d come.

When this was over, he really was going to have to tell Margaret to learn how to fix decent salads. He needed to lose some weight.

***

Jarod had managed to stay near the rear of the group of demons and had avoided the hosing by holy water. He scoffed when Roberta smoked out. She always was a cowardly bitch. Azazel would deal with her. Jarod doubted she’d be allowed out of Hell for at least a couple of thousand years. Served her right.

He watched Kosch, curious to see how their nominal leader would handle this situation. He doubted it was enough to count as a setback, but a demon could hope, right?

“Stop your sniveling and keep on going,” Kosch yelled.  “They are just humans. They can’t hurt us permanently. Our orders are to destroy this town, and we’re going to do it. Get moving. Avoid the salt circle near Town Hall. We’ve got this, people.”

Jarod was unimpressed. One part motivational speaker, one part bad movie villain dialogue and only one part useful: the part about the salt circle. As long as they avoided that, they’d be okay. Sure, holy water hurt, but, other than an exorcism, there was nothing the humans could do that was permanent to a demon.

However, Jarod still decided to continue bringing up the rear. They hadn’t expected Kansas hicks to be even this effective.

Their force moved on, most of the demons still smoking from the holy water onslaught, but now they were mad, so it was quite likely the humans’ plan was about to backfire in a big way.

Several humans, two men, three women and two pre-teen boys, turned onto the road the demons were travelling on. They all stopped and screamed. The two men pushed the women and children behind them, yelling “Run!” They ran, while the two men retreated more slowly.

How cute. Covering the retreat of their loved ones. Jarod had his eye on one of the women. She had a nice rack and ass. He could have fun with her. Along with his fellow demons, he broke into a run after the fleeing humans, already contemplating what he’d do when he caught the woman.

They ran for several blocks and were approaching an open area, just beyond some houses. Jarod slowed slightly, retaining a bit of caution, even in his desire for wanton destruction. Something about the open area was telling him to be careful.

His fellow demons ran on, hooting their delight at the chase. Jarod noticed Kosch was also slowing, and he followed his leader’s example.

Then he saw what had triggered the warning in him. A large water tower loomed over the open area, which appeared to be some sort of walking park. Surely not. Was it even possible? And if it were, would the humans really have figured it out?

Demons ran. Humans screamed. Jarod caught motion on the water tower and saw a lone figure...manipulating something?

Kosch yelled “Get back!” but it was too late. Water started pouring out of the tower, almost comically slow at first but finally developing into a raging holy torrent. Hundreds of gallons hit the ground, drenching almost the entire group of demons.

Unholy screaming filled the air. Several demons threw their heads back in retreat but most of the rest just fell to the ground, screaming and writhing in smoking, steaming bleeding horror and pain.

Jarod caught Kosch looking at him. The meaning in their leader’s eyes was clear.  _ Don’t you dare! _ Jarod thought about staying for several seconds but finally threw his own head back and smoked out.

This Battle for Jericho was fucked.

***

Jimmy almost cheered when he saw the slow fall of water from the tower drench the demons. He choked back the sound at the last moment, not wanting the demons to see him. But watching five of them smoke out was so satisfying. They’d cut the force by about a quarter, which was better than he’d been expecting. Maybe Bill was right and demons really were big cowards?

He radioed Bill. “Water tower worked perfectly.”

Bill came back with, “I know. I saw it. Looks like five more demons retreated.”

“That’s what I counted too. But, Bill, you need to know that the leader demon, that one off to the right who managed not to get hit, warned them all off Town Hall. So we will need to use the secondary site.”

“Good to know. Thanks, Jimmy. I’ll get the word out on where to drive them.”

Jimmy didn’t think the demons could listen in on the radio network, but both he and Bill still avoided saying where the secondary circle was.

“Head there too,” Bill added. “I’ll let Sarah know to expect you. Find the Mayor if you can. I want to have some reliable people there.”

“Roger that, Bill.”

Jimmy watched the milling demons for another few seconds. It was so satisfying. Then he turned to jog for the secondary site. Maybe this was all going to work out. Bill knew what he was doing.

***

Bill had wanted to see how his plan with the water tower worked, and he’d left his self-assigned central point to move to where he could see the water tower. He’d rationalized it by telling himself that it was still a central location, and he could still be found.

He’d smiled in quiet satisfaction when the demons were drenched and several had smoked out. So far his plans were working well. Which is why he knew he couldn’t relax yet. He was almost wondering if they were working too well.

After talking with Jimmy over the radio, he’d called Sarah and let her know to be ready. He also asked her to contact Dale Turner and make sure loudspeakers would be set up for the exorcism. It was time to drive the demons one last time, to where he wanted them to be.

Because of his earlier testing with holy water, he was comfortable radioing all of the deputies to fill them in on the new location. Some people needed to shuffle their positions, but he’d tried to assign everyone in a way that they could flex if plans changed.

Once everything was communicated and he thought everyone was heading where they needed to be, it was time for him to move to the secondary site. He wasn’t going to miss the ending of this.

He sent one last prayer to Gabriel. They had been working so far. Why mess with a winning strategy?

***

Kosch was not pleased. He’d been assured by his nominal “boss” that the Jericho residents would fold as soon as the demons appeared. He’d taken twenty, not because he thought he needed so many but because he wanted the job done quickly. Jericho wasn’t a very big town, but sweeping it with just a handful of demons would have taken  _ forever _ . So he had taken almost every demon from Cheyenne with him.

Now he was starting to wonder if he’d brought enough. He’d already lost a quarter of his force, and they hadn’t killed a single human. He wanted a promotion, and this wasn’t the way to advancement.

He’d managed to get the rest of the demons moving again. Several had seemed ready to smoke out, but, as a crossroads demon,  Kosch had ample experience in convincing reluctant marks, and he’d found the right message to convince them to stand their ground, although most of them looked in pretty bad shape.

He hoped they’d be of some use to him because he’d had it with these Kansas hicks. They needed to be taught a firm lesson.

He knew to avoid the Town Hall area, thanks to a timely warning from Eric Green. He hadn’t heard from him again and wondered if he had also fallen to the stupid humans. He’d find out later. 

Unfortunately, this last dash had taken them some distance from the main part of town, and Kosch chivvied everyone moving north. After several blocks, he spotted a large group of humans moving north and west. Of course he suspected a trap, although the  majority of the group looked to be women and children. Surely they wouldn’t put their most vulnerable people at risk?

His curiosity was too much. He needed to see and directed his force to follow.

***

This was the part of the plan which had Bill the most concerned. He had to assume the demons weren’t stupid and would be suspicious about being herded for a third time. He, Sarah and Mayor Green had discussed it and agreed they needed an irresistible bait, like a group of women and children. They planned to move them quickly out of the danger zone, but it was still a risk, especially since they had to change the location of the final confrontation from Town Hall, where there were lots of side streets to escape down, to the fairgrounds, where there was a lot of open area.

The demons took the bait, however, and marched pretty much straight to the fairgrounds.

The next bit had been Jimmy’s idea, and Bill had loved it. Instead of attempting to hide the salt circle, they had poured it in plain sight, as a baseball diamond. They all hoped the shape of the “circle” didn’t matter, but Sarah had been pretty sure it didn’t.

The idea was to herd the demons to the batter’s mound and have the people scatter in all directions while several deputies darted out of the bullpen to complete the circle. The exorcism would play over the loudspeakers, and that would be it.

At first it went well. The demons followed the bait into the diamond, and miraculously, once the running started, they didn’t notice that some people were running  _ toward _ the diamond while others were running  _ away. _ Almost all the demons were contained and the circle almost closed when something went wrong.

The head demon escaped the circle, just ahead of it being closed. The exorcism started playing over the loudspeaker, and the rest of the demons were banished, but, for reasons Bill didn’t know, it didn’t work on the leader.

Just as he was trying to figure out what to do, the remaining demon grabbed Dale Turner, who had been dashing from the media room to the bullpen. The demon grabbed him around his body, lifting him up. Pulling a large knife from his belt, he held the blade across the young man’s throat.

“I am Kosch, and I will kill this young man if Bill Koehler doesn’t turn himself over to me right now.”

Shit! How did the demon know his name? And what could he do about it?


	27. Chapter 27

For the first time, Lex felt a presence, which he assumed as a demon. What else would feel so greasy, disgusting and, well, evil?

He turned and saw Griff weaving and looking pale and on the verge of passing out. Just past him was one of the most ordinary men he’d ever seen. Average height and build. Brown hair. Dark eyes, probably brown but too hard to tell in the dim light from his iPhone flashlight. A decent but unexceptional suit.

He looked nothing like a demon, but the grace in Lex’s chest was practically screaming in warning. Now the darn thing tells him.

He reminded himself that he had once stood up to Quinn and Holland at the same time. He could do this. He just hoped Griff would stand his ground and not pass out on him. His partner wasn’t much of a backup, but he was all he had right now.

“Michael Lee, I presume?” Lex said, pleased that his voice was steady.

The man inclined his head in acknowledgement. “You bluffed Valente. Nicely done. We underestimated you.”

“Most do,” Lex said, trying to keep track of the conversation and plan a move at the same time.

The only problem was that he had  _ no _ moves. Could he blow his grace the way Bill had? How had he even known to do that? His grace was giving him no help at all.

Lee waved a hand, and the lights came on. Well, that was something. However, in the next breath, his eyes changed. They didn’t turn black as had the other demons. No, his turned a sickly yellow. Did that mean more or less powerful? Lex had the sinking feeling it meant more.

His water gun now seemed little more than the child’s toy it was.

“So what to do with you now?” His eyes travelled over to Griff. “Your associate looks unwell.”

Lex took the chance and took a few quick steps to Griff’s side, providing his partner with a shoulder for support. He could feel Griff shaking, but he wasn’t running.

Lee didn’t stop him, which he thought mean the demon wasn’t concerned the two of them were any impediment. Unfortunately, Lex was afraid he was correct.

“Must have been something Griff ate.” It was a lame response but the best he could come up with at the moment.

At that moment, he caught furtive motion behind Lee. Hoping it was help instead of reinforcement for Lee, he forced his gaze to remain on the demon. “So what are you going to do with us?” He raised his gun in an attempt to draw Lee’s eyes.

It worked. The demon tracked the gun but smiled, obviously not worried. “While holy water will sting, I’m afraid you don’t have enough of it in that toy to do more than inconvenience me.”

Lex moved his finger inside the trigger guard. “Then I’ll inconvenience you. Mess up that cheap suit a bit. I’m not going down without a fight you know.”

To his amazement, Griff stood up straight, his own gun steady on Lee. Lex found himself smiling. They might not be able to take this guy down, but at least they’d try together.

Lee seemed amused by their solidarity, and he started to say something, but the furtive motion behind him turned into a fast moving black man with something in his hands. He whipped it around Lee’s neck, planted a knee in the demon’s back and shouted. “Shoot the bastard! Now!”

Before he had finished speaking, Lex was shooting and so was Griff. Lee would have been screaming, but his body obviously couldn’t get any air around whatever it was the man was choking him with.

Smoke rose from his clothes at the double assault by Lex and Griff. His yellow eyes burned, mostly with hatred, but a little with fear. Lex was running out of water, and he was afraid this wasn’t going to work when Lee smoked out, his body crumpling to the floor, already decaying.

Griff dropped his water gun, stepped to the side and threw up. Keeping an eye on the black man, Lex knelt down to rub his partner’s back. “You going to be okay, Griff?”

Griff spat once and replied with, “Probably not, but I might live. Good enough?”

Lex smiled. “We’ll go with it.”

Satisfied Griff was not in urgent need of attention, he stood up and walked toward the man, who was watching them, his body apparently relaxed, although his eyes darted back and forth. Holding out his hand, he said, “I’m Lex. Don’t know how you did that, but thank you.”

The man stepped forward and shook his hand. “Hawkins. Stupid move coming in here, but I’m glad you did. I didn’t think I could take him out myself.”

Griff came over then, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Griff. Probably don’t want to shake mine.”

Hawkins gave him a quick grin, full of teeth. “Probably not.”

“What did you use on him?” Lex asked.

Hawkins held up a string of what looked like beads. “Rosary.”

Griff laughed. “Never thought of that. Should have, though. That’s good, man.”

“Who are you with?” Lex asked.

“CIA,” Hawkins said.

Lex couldn’t help the grin which spread across his face at that.

“Undercover, trying to stop this operation,” he continued. “I had all the pieces but I wasn’t sure how to stop the trucks from rolling tonight. I was supposed to drive one of them, but I sure hoped I wouldn’t have to.”

Undercover too. Lex wondered if the man existed in his world and if he had ever created a cover for him. He didn’t look familiar, but that didn’t mean much. He’d done hundreds by now.

“Pretty glad you two showed up when you did. Taking down the demon was the biggest problem, but a bunch of fanatics are going to be here soon.”

Lex held up his phone. “I can call in the cavalry, if you’re okay with it. Got an FBI team nearby ready to roll on this place.”

Hawkins waved his hand. “Have at it.”

Lex called the FBI, and when they showed up, Griff directed them to gather evidence and to call the bomb unit to dismantle the nuclear devices. The agents seemed surprised that there were actual nuclear bombs here, but they didn’t waste any time.

Hawkins went to a nearby shelf and grabbed what looked like a military grade laptop. Lex had an idea. “Hawkins. Can you receive satellite data on that thing?”

The man stopped. “Sure. Need to look at something?”

“I do. We have some friends in Jericho, and they are probably in the middle of a demon battle right now. I want to check on them.”

Hawkins shrugged and found a nearby surface to set up his laptop. He logged in and moved aside to let Lex use it. “Jericho is where I was planning to run to. It was going to be one of the few safe places in the Midwest.”

“Yeah, we knew that.” Lex typed furiously for a few minutes. Luckily, there was a satellite near enough. If he just changed its direction a bit, he’d be able to...yes. There was Jericho.

“You’re pretty good,” Hawkins said at the same time Griff asked, “Can you see anything?”

Lex made a few adjustments and swore as the picture came into focus.

Bill was walking toward someone, probably a demon, who was holding some kid hostage. Sarah, a deputy he thought was Jimmy and another man were coming up behind him, moving slowly, water guns raised. It didn’t look like the demon had seen them.

Damn! What could he do?

“That’s Kosch,” Hawkins said. “Leader of the demons in Cheyenne.”

“You are amazingly well informed,” Griff commented.

“It’s what I do,” he replied back.

“And this is what I do,” Lex said, thinking and typing furiously. He wished he had his own computer, but he pulled out his phone, hoping he had the right apps installed. Oh good, he did. Swiping quickly, he scanned the area around...Sarah’s phone. That would work. There. A phone hooked up to…

He started to smile, knowing exactly how to handle this. He quickly hacked into the phone, slaved it to his phone and made a call.

***

 

Bill was panicking now. He had his pistol, and he could see Sarah, Jimmy and the Mayor creeping up behind Kosch. But somehow he didn’t think holy water was going to take this guy out. And Dale? What about Dale?

He didn’t see a choice, and he stepped out from behind the bullpen. He dropped his gun and raised his hands. “I’m Bill Koehler. I’m who you want. Let the boy go.”

Kosch smiled. “Ah. You are the one who has been inconveniencing me. What shall I do with you?”

The demon’s eyes changed, and they were red, not the black Bill had become almost accustomed to. What did that mean?

Suddenly, the loudspeaker crackled, and...seriously? Was that Lex? How had he managed that? Well, he was Lex, obviously.

“Kosch,” Lex said, “You don’t know me, but I’m the reason your little plan with the trucks just imploded.”

Kosch was frowning.

Lex continued. “Hear that behind me?”

The sounds of moving people interspersed with phrases like “...be careful with that arming device…” and “...we’ve got experts coming in from DoD to handle these…” 

“That’s the FBI dismantling your operation. Lee smoked out. Valente is in custody. It looks like my friends defeated your demons. You’re alone, Kosch. Might as well crawl back to Hell and deal with the consequences.”

Bill watched emotions crawl across Kosch’s face. Anger. Disbelief. Fear. Yeah, he liked that last one.

Sarah yelled “Now!” and she, Jimmy and Mayor Green opened fire with holy water.

Apparently, that was all Kosch could take. He threw his head back and smoked out.

But not without slitting Dale Turner’s throat before he left.

Both bodies collapsed to the ground.


	28. Chapter 28

Griff slept through most of the flight to Denver. Because they hadn’t been in a time crunch this time, Lex had gotten them first class seats, so at least he didn’t wake up with a terrible cramp in his neck.

But he was still embarrassed that Lex had needed to basically sleep-walk him through security and onto the plane again. He remembered a few details but most of the trip was a blank until he woke up when the pilot announced their imminent arrival in Denver.

“Damn! I did it again didn’t I?” Griff asked when the tinny voice woke him up.

Lex was looking at his phone but reached over to give Griff’s leg an absent pat. “It’s okay. I just woke up myself. I’d have to look at a calendar to remember when we last got something close to a full night’s sleep.”

When Griff thought back, he realized his partner was right. It had been a while. “Any messages from Sarah or Bill?”

Lex nodded and lifted his phone. “Several. I’m reading through them now. I sent them our flight information from Reagan National, and Sarah says they are both meeting us. Apparently saving the entire town got Bill a couple of days off.”

“Good. He deserves them. Of course, then he uses one of them to drive to Denver to pick us up.”

“I texted that exact sentiment back to Sarah, and she assured me it’s not a problem. That they both missed us and will be glad to see us.”

Griff was suddenly reminded that they would be leaving Sarah and Bill’s universe soon. He’d be leaving behind basically half the people he knew. He knew the Koehlers deserved to have their lives back, but he’d grown fond of both of them and knew he would miss them.

Fortunately, it was at least a day before they would have to worry about that, and they had a merry meeting at the Denver airport. Bill and Sarah gave each of them long hugs, and Sarah even kissed Griff briefly on the lips. He had to restrain his impulse to touch the spot she’d kissed. It had been the only time he’d been kissed there since Dana, and he was glad to have something to wipe out the earlier memory. Even if it had been little more than a sisterly thing.

Bill drove back, and Griff was amused to note that Lex didn’t seem impatient about Bill’s near-religious adherence to the speed limit. He’d been just aware enough on the last drive back to have noticed his partner’s twitchiness.

They compared stories on the drive back, and Sarah had giggled at Griff’s insistence that Valente be strip searched. Lex had downplayed his efforts with messages to various law enforcement agencies, and Griff had enjoyed setting the story straight.

He and Lex had been impressed by how well Jericho had defended itself, and they’d both expressed their sorrow at Mayor Green losing his son. Whether Eric had been a willing participant or an unwitting victim, the Mayor was unlikely to see his son again.

Lex had bought them all dinner at Bailey’s using what Sarah had dubbed “the magic credit card,” and they finally ended up at the Koehler home where everyone stayed up too late, all of them knowing what the morning brought and none of them wanting the evening to end.

Finally, however, they had said their goodnights and gone to bed.

Griff had stayed awake late into the night, listening to Lex’s quiet breathing on the other side of the bed, wondering what he would do next.

He hadn’t made any decisions before falling asleep just before dawn. However, he forced himself to be as upbeat as he could be during goodbyes.

Of course, everyone’s mood was sad, and no one’s eyes were quite dry as they all exchanged a final round of hugs.

Finally, Lex prayed to Gabriel. A portal opened, and Lex and Griff crossed over, leaving the Koehlers behind.

Griff wondered if he’d ever see them again.

***

Leaving Bill and Sarah behind had been one of the hardest things Lex had done in years. With them, he had found a fellowship similar to what he’d had with Terri and Stiles a decade ago. He didn’t want to go back to his lonely life. He was pretty sure Griff would stay near--they’d made too good a team--but he had enjoyed being part of a larger group.

Lex had been up early that morning, tying up some loose ends and leaving information in relevant databases about demons. Because he couldn’t help himself, he had checked out Bill and Sarah’s finances and those of their friends. The Koehlers were in decent shape, but he had figured there weren’t any problems that a hundred K in tax free money couldn’t solve, so he had set up a special bank account for them and sent instructions for how to access the money and suggestions to do it slowly, over several years so as not to bring attention to them. He was confident they were smart enough to do it the right way.

Jimmy Taylor was a bit more of a spender than Bill and Sarah, but he was also in decent shape. Lex had decided to leave him alone.

However, their friend Stanley was in bad shape. His farm hadn’t paid taxes in way too long, and when he went hunting in the IRS database, he noticed an auditor had already been assigned to him. It had been too late to stoop the audit, so how to funnel nearly two hundred thousand dollars his way? He had finally decided a bequest from a non-existent uncle would do it. He had set up another account and sent instructions along with a death notice and some official looking documents to the Koehler iPad.

It hadn’t been much, but he’d thought it was the least he could do for them.

Gabriel had opened the portal into Lex’s living room, and this time he wasn’t alone. Standing beside him was a man who towered above the angel. Lex estimated him to be about Griff’s age. He was dressed in layers of clothes, mostly flannel and plaid. Lex thought it suited him, but it was definitely not a look Lex was going to adopt. Ever.

Gabriel smiled when he saw them. “Lex and Griff. This is Sam.” He nodded at the tall man who nodded at them. “I sense Bill is okay now, so I guess it all worked.”

Lex assumed this was the Sam that Gabriel had referred to in the beginning of all of this.

“Don’t let him fool you,” Sam said. “Four days ago, he practically started climbing the walls with worry.”

Gabriel gave him a sidelong look and an elaborate eyebrow waggle. “Pretty sure the only wall I climbed was you, Sammich.”

Sam rolled his eyes, but a small smile played around the corners of his lips.

Okay, that was what Gabriel had meant by “his” Sam.

Either Gabriel or Sam had brought snacks and drinks, which was good because Lex was pretty sure everything in his fridge had gone bad. He and Griff filled them in on what had happened. Both Gabriel and Sam had asked some pointed questions about the demons because apparently things worked differently here. The bodies demons inhabited didn’t decay and salt circles wouldn’t contain them. Sam described something called a “Devil’s Trap,” and a chill had gone down Lex’s back when he realized how disastrous the Battle of Jericho would have been if the salt circle hadn’t worked.

“You did exceptionally well,” Sam had said when they’d finished. He’d pulled a large knife out from under his many layers. “This kills demons, and angel blades work too. You handled all of your demons without any special weapons.”

“Other than water guns,” Gabriel said. “That was clever.”

“So what’s the plan now, Lex?” Gabriel asked. “And for you too, Griff?”

Lex noticed the muscles in the angel’s shoulders had tensed up, and he wondered what that meant. He glanced over at Griff, who nodded. “Well, Gabriel. Back when this all started, you said you thought I might make a decent hunter. I kind of got the impression you weren’t talking about game.”

“No, I wasn’t.” His voice was low and soft.

“I’m assuming it might be something like what we’ve been doing. Only over here.” He took a deep breath. “And Griff and I have talked it over. If you’re willing to teach us, we’d like to learn.”

Gabriel gave them both measuring looks. “Griff, you don’t really have a life to go back to, but Lex, you do. You have a good job and friends here. Are you sure you want to give that up?”

Griff barked out a laugh. “Gabriel, if you’d seen the contacts list on his phone, you never would have said that!” 

Lex felt himself blush. “No need to tell them that part, Griff!” He swallowed a few times and then added. “But it’s basically true. There isn’t much holding me here. I’ve been going through the motions for some time now, and I don’t really have any friends.”  _ Besides, I just left two of my best friends behind in another universe. _

Gabriel glanced over at Sam. The tall man nodded. “If they can do what they just did, we can use them. We’ve still got Michael to deal with. I think we need all the help we can get.”

“Michael” Griff asked. “You don’t mean the Archangel Michael, do you?”

Oh fuck. Lex certainly hoped not.

“I’m afraid I do,” Sam said.

So much for that.

Griff gave a deep sigh. “Well, it’s got to be better than demons, right?”

Sam laughed. “You’d think so, but most angels are dicks.” He gave Gabriel a look filled with such affection that Lex knew they were far more than hunting buddies. “Present company excepted, of course.”

Gabriel shrugged. “It wouldn’t have been an inappropriate description not that long ago.” But then he smiled. “If you’re willing, we’d like to train you. I agree with Sam. You’d be naturals.”

Lex looked at Griff who nodded back.

“All right then,” Lex said. “Give me a week or so to sort things out here, and we’ll help you out.”

He had no idea exactly what he was signing on for, but he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be boring.

And maybe if they did a good enough job, they could persuade Gabriel to open a portal and let them visit Bill and Sarah someday.

 

THE END (for now)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a story behind this story. I banged out that first scene (Sarah finding Lex and Griff) because I had Lex and Griff on the brain (was writing Conspiracy at the time), and I wanted to write something with Sarah to cheer up Hixystix. I honestly had no idea why the two of them were in Jericho. I had a vague idea to continue it some day, but I was wrapped up in other projects.
> 
> About a month later, I asked her if she wanted me to write her a birthday fic (we share a birthday). She said she wanted me to continue the little Sarah snippet, and I confidently said "SURE!" Which then left me trying to figure out why Lex and Griff were in Jericho. *sigh*
> 
> I came up with the Gabriel framing story because no way was this going to be a story for the **Non-Gabe** Rich Bang. Also, I asked her if she wanted Lex and Griff to be shipped or not, and she said not. So I had to switch back and forth between Lex/Griff and Lex and Griff for several months. *sigh*
> 
> I was expecting the story to be about 15-20K and finished before our birthday. See how well that worked out?
> 
> As I was writing this, we realized I was starting a 'Verse. And she started writing a story, set several years later, that was going to be a Bang fic. Which meant this one would be a Bang fic. Good thing Gabriel stayed in a very minor role, which we had decided was allowed. (Before I started writing this story! Yes, we do follow our own rules!)
> 
> Long story short, we decided to hold her story for later. But we both liked Salvation in the Bang, so it stayed. And we have written or co-written, oh, something like 4 more stories in the 'Verse. And are planning a big "Bill and Sarah learn to hunt" story when I finally get around to finishing the three stories between this one and that one. (One done. One almost done. One planned out.)
> 
> So we hope you like this take on these characters. Because there is A LOT more of them coming. And most of them will involve Supernatural characters too, for those of you who want more Gabriel and the rest.
> 
> Stick around. It'll be fun.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Salvation across universes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18178010) by [Lysel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lysel/pseuds/Lysel)




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